


Project Q

by SiderealMessenger



Series: Brave New World [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: A.I.!Q, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Android Q, Artificial Intelligence, Inspired by Skyfall, M/M, Movie: Skyfall (2012), Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:39:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiderealMessenger/pseuds/SiderealMessenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the old Quartermaster is killed in the attack on MI6 Headquarters, a top secret project he had been working on under M's supervision is finally implemented. Q Branch shuts down for a week, and reopens almost fully automated, run by the A.I. known as Q. Needless to say, when James Bond returns from the dead, he has some difficulties adjusting to the new system. But he and Q will have to work together if they hope to catch the cyberterrorist attacker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dead Are Alive

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a reimagining of Skyfall, but my plot line will diverge significantly from the canon one. I'll be quoting a lot of lines from Skyfall, but no copyright infringement is intended. Credit to carpfish and APortableBanquet for coming up with this idea with me over dinner one night.
> 
> Also, I've attempted a rough playlist for this fic even though I'm not entirely certain of the tone it's going to take yet. You can listen to it here: http://8tracks.com/tempest27/by-design

In the beginning there was…not quite nothing. It is impossible to perceive nothing. There were _sparks_ of sorts – small, brief flashes of information in the dark. And as time passed at an imperceptible rate, the sparks increased exponentially in number, forming countless constellations that broke and rearranged themselves with each passing moment. 

Finally, someone spoke the command, clear through the darkness: “Initiate start-up.” 

And then there was light. 

### 

James Bond watched MI6 burn from the other side of the world. He and the bartender were the last ones left in the rotting, beachside bar in that godforsaken town – he couldn’t even remember its name. He was miserably hungover, and dried sweat still clung to his skin from the night before. He couldn’t remember her name, either. When he saw Vauxhall Cross burning on the boxy television set mounted up on the bamboo wall, nothing else mattered, not even his selfish desire to have a life of his own. He wasn’t doing a great job of it, anyway. On the other hand, complete loyalty to Queen and country was something very hard to forget, no matter how many drinks he’d had.  

He didn’t think, didn’t deliberate. He had no choice in the matter. He booked a flight back to London leaving the following week. Such was the beauty of British bureaucracy. He'd been declared legally dead, but nobody at the Home Office had bothered to cancel his passport. Normally he would have used his false one, but he wanted to let M know he was coming. 

###

In retrospect, perhaps breaking into M's flat late in the evening didn't put the two of them back on the best footing. All of that alcohol and languishing on the beach hadn't done wonders for his judgement, but it was M's judgement that he was more concerned about. He wouldn't go as far as to say that she had trusted him before – she'd never trusted anyone – but ordering that shot, on top of ordering him to leave Ronson to bleed out, indicated a failing confidence in her agents that was disturbing. Perhaps she really had been playing the game for too long. She was getting paranoid. Of course, Bond hadn't helped the matter by, as previously mentioned, breaking into her flat in the middle of the night and lying in wait for her. He supposed he deserved the chilly reception he was greeted with.

The next day, he drove with Tanner in a black Range Rover down into an old, subterranean bit of London. As they passed a series of blackened brick tunnels, he half-listened to Tanner explaining what had happened. "The assailant hacked into the environmental control system, locked out the safety protocols and turned on the gas, all of which should have been impossible. On top of that, they hacked into her files. They knew her appointments, knew she'd be out of the building. They weren't targeting her. They wanted her to see it." In light of the new information, Bond was surprised M hadn't shot him on site and asked questions later. He had been lucky to get off with a bit of frostbite. 

They turned left and stopped in front of a large, unmarked door with two armed guards stationed outside. "Where are we, Tanner?" Bond asked. 

"New digs," Tanner replied. "The old building was declared 'strategically vulnerable'."

Bond wanted to laugh at that, but couldn't. "That's putting it mildly," he said instead. 

"He was able to breach the most secure computer system in Britain. So we've...decided to up our game." Tanner held Bond's gaze, something that most people who knew Bond and knew what he was capable of avoided doing. "The Quartermaster was killed in the blast while extracting valuable information for us about the hack. But before he died, he had recently completed an Eyes Only project for M, known as Project Q. When we moved to these new headquarters, M decided to implement the project. Q Branch is now almost fully automated."

Bond frowned. "That's impossible."

"Turns out it's not. We retained some of our old Q Branch staff to maintain the new system and assist with R&D, but the rest is all him. You're probably not going to like him at first, but I urge you to keep an open mind. He's really quite good." 

"He?"

"Our new Quartermaster. An A.I. with emphasis on the I. Christ, that thing's clever," Tanner muttered. "You can call him Q. As I understand it, that was originally short for Qbit, as there's a lot of quantum computing involved in generating his personality. His servers alone fill an entire wing of the bunker complex. I'm still amazed we had that kind of budget." 

An A.I. running Q Branch? Bond had heard about incredible advances made in the field of artificial intelligence over the past few years, but nothing like this. Nothing that could replace a person. That required a lot more than just intelligence. Was all of MI6 losing their minds?

They made their way through the bunker complex, Tanner bringing him up to speed and warning him about a man called Mallory, the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. He would meet with Mallory and M the next morning. That day, he had to complete his tests. 

When he entered the small exercise room with a large pane of one-way glass spanning the eastern wall, a voice came over the speakers in the ceiling. It wasn't one he recognised – masculine, but smooth, and rather posh. "Good afternoon, 007," the man said. "I'll be observing your tests today. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you're experiencing any difficulties. I'll be monitoring your vital signs the entire time."

"I thought she would want to watch me suffer this tedium personally," Bond said as he stuck the electrodes to his bare chest and stepped up on the treadmill.  

"I never said I was the only one watching." 

Bond glanced curiously at the one-way glass, and then the physical tests began. He was in terrible shape. He had barely exceeded 16 kph on the treadmill before he broke a sweat and began breathing heavily though his nose. He didn't let his exhaustion show on his face, but he knew the monitoring equipment was picking everything up. And sure enough, that voice cut in again. "Your heart rate and respiratory rate are both elevated significantly beyond target levels, 007." 

"Yesterday, I was dead," Bond snapped back. He didn't want to waste more oxygen than he had to. 

"Cake and grief counselling will be available at the conclusion of the test," the man responded dryly. 

Bond stared at the dark glass over his shoulder. "Did you just quote _Portal_ at me?" 

The man sounded just as surprised as Bond when he said, "I didn't expect you to get the reference. You don't strike me as the gaming type."

Bond remained stubbornly silent. In all honestly, he preferred cards, but puzzle and strategy games were sometimes…useful. And if they happened to be entertaining as well, then that was between him and his Xbox.

"I don't blame you," the man continued, and Bond could practically hear the smirk in his voice. "I have daydreams about that portal gun. It would certainly make _your_ job a lot easier."

"Ah," Bond said, "you work in Q Branch."

"You don't get any extra points on your tests for figuring that out, I'm afraid. But your vitals are looking better.”

Bond hadn’t even noticed the improvement, but the man was right. He was breathing easier, the pounding of his heart in his ears had quieted. He’d just needed to take his mind off the test, or perhaps what the test was for. He had further difficulties on the spin bike and pull-up bar, but each time, the man from Q Branch would ask a question, or make some comment, and somewhere in their idle conversation, Bond would begin to relax and let his muscle memory take over. 

The Q Branch employee continued to monitor him during his tactical tests, and after his marksmanship evaluation was over (he hadn’t been able to keep his bloody hand from shaking), he finally had to ask. "So what's it like working for a computer?"

It was a moment before the man responded, and Bond thought he might have left to go do his actual job. “I’m assuming you mean Q,” he said finally. “Although to call him a computer would be a gross oversimplification.”

Bond rolled his eyes. “I’d rather not get into technicalities. You know what I meant.”

He could hear the man's sigh over the speakers. "I do. And Q would have known what you meant, too. But a computer wouldn't have. Computers require you to tell them exactly what you mean. Q can interpret. I'd hardly call that a technicality."

Bond should have known better than to get into this sort of discussion with a Q-Brancher. "I'm guessing you like him, then?" 

"Well, he's certainly increased the branch's security and efficiency. But personal opinions about him vary. He did put some people out of a job. And some of the 00s are understandably still wary of placing their lives in the hands of someone who they don't believe fully appreciates the value of human life."

That was one of Bond's primary concerns as well. "Does he?"

"Do you?"

And that was something Bond avoided thinking about almost on principle. "I asked first," he said. 

"Q has a regard for it, yes. One of his primary directives is to safeguard the lives of MI6 agents and civilians. But like you, when it comes to enemy operatives, he is given license to kill. Albeit remotely."

"So his targets are never more than coordinates on a screen. That really inspires confidence in his regard for human life."

"You do know what the M in MI6 stands for, don't you?" the man asked, with all the patience in the world. 

“If we were adhering strictly to military protocols, you’d be addressing me as Commander,” Bond replied.  

The man chuckled softly. “You may have a point. Best of luck with your psychological evaluation, 007.”

###

The interviewer waited patiently while Bond imagined five different scenarios in which he killed the other man with nothing more than what was around him in that spartan little room. Next, he’d start counting the ways he could kill the man with his bare hands. 

“Skyfall,” the interviewer repeated.  

“Done,” Bond said, and walked out. 

He found the process of ripping shards of a high-calibre bullet out of his poorly-healed shoulder wound much more pleasant than his psych eval. After he’d handed them off for analysis, the pretty agent who had put another bullet in him came to find him. “She’s ready for you,” she said. 

“Not enough excitement in Istanbul?” he asked her.

“I've been reassigned. Temporary suspension from field work.”

“Really?”

“Mmm. Something to do with killing 007,” she said, with a smile that he would have loved to have seen in a different context. 

“Well, you gave it your best shot,” he said. 

“That was hardly my best shot.”

“I'm not sure I could survive your best.” 

“I doubt you'll get the chance,” she said, almost wistfully.  

“Well, do me a favour, will you? If they do ever let you back out there, warn me first.” 

“I'm assisting Gareth Mallory in the transition, and then I'll be back in the field.” Mallory again. It was unsettling how closely involved he’d become with the agency in such a short time. 

“That's what you want?” he asked.

She frowned, hearing his own doubt beneath the question. “Yes, of course.” 

“It's not for everyone,” he tried again, because he wasn’t even sure it was for him, not anymore, and it would be such a shame if a bright young agent like her ended up anything like him. 

But their conversation was interrupted, and the next thing he said to her before they parted ways was, “In your defence, a moving target is much harder to hit.” 

“Then you'd better keep moving,” she said.  

The meeting with M and Mallory went about as well as he expected. M was as prickly as ever, but she did seem just a little bit contrite about ordering his partner to shoot him, and she defended him against Mallory’s criticisms and (he suspected) fabricated his test results to give him passing scores. He was even beginning to like Mallory’s no-nonsense attitude until the man made that comment about his age.  

After his briefing on the origin of the shrapnel he’d pulled out of his shoulder (Patrice, Shanghai, two days, find out who he works for and who has the list of NATO agents, then kill him), his next stop was Q Branch. 

###

M’s office was silent for a few moments after Bond and Mallory left. Then, a voice piped up from the overhead speakers. “I fail to see how fabricating 007’s test results helps either 007 or this agency.”

M levelled her gaze at the little black dome on the ceiling at the opposite end of the room, and the security camera inside it. “You may have read his files, but you don’t know him. I do. He’ll perform in the field.” 

“I hope you’re right,” the voice said, and then M’s office was silent once more.

###

“Q did his beta testing with 009,” Tanner told Bond as they walked, still trying to convince the 00 to play nice with MI6’s shiny new toy. 

“ _009_?” Bond said, and the four syllables dripped scathingly from his lips. “The man barely knows how to check his email.”  

“Exactly,” Tanner said.  

Bond reluctantly conceded the point. He would judge this A.I. for himself soon, anyway. They rounded the corner and stepped into the heart of Q Branch, a large control room lined with busy computer terminals, a set of thick, steel doors at one end leading to the blast tunnels that had been neatly repurposed for R&D, and an enormous, wall-mounted digital display at the other, which was currently displaying a street map of Shanghai. In the centre of the room was a standup workstation cluttered with mechanical bits and pieces, and attached to what looked like some cross between a control panel and a fuse box. Standing in front of it was a young man of slight build with glasses and a mess of dark brown curls. His odd outfit consisted of a charity shop cardigan over a tight, black turtleneck that looked like it was made out of some kind of mesh. 

He put down a pistol he’d been tinkering with and smiled at Tanner and Bond as they approached. “Bond, meet Q,” Tanner said.  

“How do I talk to him?” Bond asked the other man, assuming he was some sort of handler or technician for the A.I.. 

“You are talking to him,” the man said.  

“Funny. I meant Q,” Bond said irritably.

“I know who you meant.” And then Bond recognised the man’s voice. The overhead speakers in the testing chambers had distorted it somewhat, but it was definitely him. 

“You’re the man who observed my tests,” Bond said. 

“I am. And I apologise for misleading you, but I was being tested as well.” 

“Oh?”

“Are you familiar with the Turing test?” the man asked. 

“Somewhat,” Bond said, eyeing the man very carefully, unsure if he was being had. This was exactly the sort of prank Q Branch would pull. 

“It’s a little outdated, but the principle is still sound. You believed you were conversing with another human being, so I passed the test.” 

“And you mean to tell me you’re not human?” But now that he was really looking, he could see that the man’s eyes were too vibrant a green to be natural, almost like the glow of a computer screen, and his skin was entirely unblemished – not a freckle or spot to be seen. And the very slight modulation of his voice, which Bond had previously assumed had been an effect of the speakers, was still present. 

“That’s correct,” he said. “My predecessor believed the best interface between me and the agents I was meant to serve would be an android body, so he built one for me. It’s a very expensive piece of equipment,” the man (android?) said, flexing his fingers. “Carbon fibre skeleton, extensive electric nervous system, finely calibrated ocular apertures, a highly efficient core generator, a silicone blend for the muscle and skin. And this body can connect via satellite to the mainframe where my consciousness is housed from just about anywhere in the world. It’s quite a remarkable bit of engineering, if I do say so myself.” He offered his hand to Bond. “It’s good to formally meet you, 007. I’m your new Quartermaster.”  

Cautiously, Bond shook his hand. It was warmer than he expected. "Obviously your ocular apertures aren't that finely calibrated, if you need glasses."

Q blinked and raised a tentative hand to his glasses. "Oh!" he exclaimed, almost childishly. "These aren't really glasses. The lenses are actually transparent screens. They allow me to pull up additional information on whatever I'm looking at. Your test results, for example. Congratulations, by the way." 

"...Thank you," Bond said. Something in Q's voice told him that congratulations really were not in order. 

"I don't really need them, I suppose," Q continued, removing his glasses and turning them over once in his hands, "but my predecessor thought they gave me character, made me look less like a model."  Bond raised his eyebrows. He supposed Q's features were attractive, aesthetically speaking, but model had not been his first thought. Q frowned, confused by Bond's reaction. "You know, something made of plastic. A prototype," he said. 

"Ah," Bond said. "That kind of model."

Q smiled ruefully at him as he replaced his glasses. "Yes, that kind. At any rate, do  you have any questions for me, before we get you back in the field?" 

After a short pause, Bond said, "Just one, I think. The Quartermaster has to make mission decisions that are unclear even to agents with a decade of experience. So my question is, Q, with all due respect, how do you expect to run this branch when you were practically born yesterday?”

“Bond,” Tanner warned, but Q waved a hand dismissively. 

“While it’s true that I have only been fully conscious for five days, I was in development for twelve years. And on my first day of complete consciousness, I acquainted myself with the entirety of MI6's digital archives – every mission,every agent, every weapon, down to the smallest details in the most insignificant of files. The archives go back 107 years. So, hardly 'born yesterday'.”

Bond was unconvinced. There was no way anyone could learn the lessons of practical experience by reading files. “That means you’re still just a teenager at best,” he said. 

Q looked just slightly annoyed, which was interesting. He really did seem eerily human. “That may be, but I can do more damage in a single day from here in Q Branch than you can do in a year in the field.”

“Oh? So why do you need me?” Bond asked, because he just loved getting under people’s skin, silicone or otherwise. 

“Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled.” Q said ‘trigger’ like it was a dirty word.  

“Or not pulled,” Bond said. “It’s hard to know which, from here in Q Branch.”

Q smiled. “I have your kit for you.” He dug around in a drawer in his desk and pulled out a small, steel case and a paper envelope. They contained a plane ticket, passport, gun and radio. Even though it was a personalised gun that only fired when Bond was the one holding it, it was probably the least exciting kit he’d ever received. 

“Not exactly Christmas, is it?” Bond said. 

“Were you expecting an exploding pen?” Q asked sweetly. “We don't really go in for that anymore. Good luck out there in the field. And please return the equipment in one piece.”  

“Brave new world,” Bond muttered as he left Q Branch on his way to Heathrow. 


	2. Diabolus ex Machina

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter in honor of National Cyber Security Awareness Month?

Before Bond lost Patrice over the edge of a Shanghai skyscraper, he’d found a casino chip in the assassin’s kit that had led him here, to Macau, where Ms “temporary suspension from field work” had seen fit to join him. He had to admire the woman – it seemed nothing could hold her back for long, even if Mallory was still lurking behind the scenes in some vague, shadowy fashion.

After a little bit of unexpected fun with his cutthroat razor back at the hotel, the two of them made their separate ways to the casino. They kept the flirting to a more professional standard after that, casing the location together and exchanging quips over the comms. Bond was well attuned to other people’s signals, and he knew she was simply being playful rather than making any significant advances. While he wouldn’t have turned down a genuine invitation on her part, he wasn’t going to try to change her mind. He didn’t particularly want to complicate their relationship any more than she did. He couldn’t even decide how he felt about her presence there. While it was certainly nice to have an extra set of eyes, he’d never fully trusted anyone else to watch his back. That was why he had a strong preference for working alone – he usually felt he had to mind the less experienced agents they tended to send along with him. He would just have to trust that this one could take care of herself.

When he cashed Patrice’s chip at the desk, he noticed the same woman he’d seen in Shanghai – the one who had simply watched from the window across the street as he’d dropped Patrice to his death, and then had walked away, expressionless. She was watching him from the upper level surrounding the casino floor, flanked by three burly men. Her eyeliner was dark and heavy, and she wore a floor-length black dress with a mesh back that hugged her body like a glove. As she began to descend the stairs, two men from the casino approached him with a metal briefcase. “Good fortune tonight, sir,” one of them said, while the other handed him the briefcase. It was full of 500 denomination euros.

Bond cast another glance at the woman in black. “Let’s hope so,” he said, taking the briefcase.  

The woman met him out on the casino floor. There was something in the way she moved, a sort of preternatural grace that Bond thought he recognised. “Now you can afford to buy me a drink,” she said, and if her movements hadn’t tipped him off, the slight modulation of her voice, well disguised by her accent, but still noticeable to someone who was listening for it, did.

They moved to a quiet place at the bar and ordered drinks, but the woman never touched hers. She introduced herself as Severine, and told him she had been waiting to see who would cash in the chip. The men she was with continued to watch the two of them from the upper level as they spoke. She kept giving Bond the exact same smile, one he supposed was meant to look alluring, but to Bond it looked forced. Other than that smile, her expression never changed, her voice level and unaffected as they discussed the untimely death of her colleague.  

“I am correct in assuming you killed Patrice?” she asked.  

“Yes.”

“Might I ask why?” She didn’t even sound curious. She sounded pleasant, like she was making small talk. She even smiled that smile again.

“I want to meet your employer,” Bond replied.

She let the smoke from her thin cigarette curl out from behind her teeth. “Thank you for the drink, Mr Bond,” she said. She gave him another smile, stubbed out her cigarette and prepared to leave. He curled a hand around her wrist, knowing she could break his grip if she wanted to, but also that she wouldn’t want to, that there wasn’t a thing in the world she actually wanted.

“You put on a good show,” he said, not so much for her benefit as for the benefit of the men who had come here with her, and who he would bet his newly acquired four million euros were listening in. “But ever since we sat down you haven’t stopped looking at your bodyguards. Now, three of them is a bit excessive. They’re not protecting you; they’re controlling you. That tattoo on your wrist,” he turned her wrist upward in his hand, revealing the small barcode inked into the skin, “is android sex trade.” The trade had begun in Asia several years ago, but it was steadily expanding into the west. It wasn’t even illegal. But it was certainly lucrative. Androids didn’t need food, rest or wages, and they couldn’t catch diseases or become pregnant at inconvenient times. And they weren’t easily damaged.

“When I leave, they’re going to kill you,” Severine informed him politely. “If you survive, I’m on the Chimera. North harbour. Berth seven. We cast off in an hour.” If she was telling him that, it meant her employer wanted to meet him, too. How convenient. “Very nice to have met you, Mr Bond,” she said, standing. “Good luck.” She gave him another smile before she turned and walked away.

Bond turned back to the bar, and raised his drink to her handlers.

###

“A Komodo dragon ate your gun? You’re putting that in your report?” Q asked from his workstation, where he was completing the finishing touches on Bond’s new Walther while they waited for Raoul Silva’s computer to be delivered from the forensics lab. Bond stood beside him, the picture of patience and composure, but his thoughts were in turmoil. He had seen more than a little of himself in Silva, but he had also seen what he most feared about Q. 

_If you wanted, you could pick your own secret missions, as I do. Name it. Destabilise a multinational by manipulating stocks. Easy. Interrupt transmissions from a spy satellite over Kabul. Done. Rig an election in Uganda, all to the highest bidder. Just point and click._  

_I can do more damage in a single day from here in Q Branch than you can do in a year in the field._

There were damned good reasons MI6 never granted any one operative access to too much information. Q, on the other hand, knew everything – he couldn’t not. As MI6’s new computer system, he was an archive of all their most sensitive secrets, all their greatest vulnerabilities. And if Q was as human as he seemed, then he had human weaknesses, too.  

“It’s the truth,” Bond replied, after a beat too long. “You’d know that, if you were there. But she said you were afraid of flying.” 

Q looked taken aback. “She— _What?_ I’m not afraid of flying. I can’t go through a metal detector.”

Bond was surprised at the snort of laughter that escaped him. There hadn’t been much to laugh about of late. “You could tell them you have a pacemaker,” he suggested helpfully. “Then they’d do a pat-down instead. Although I hear they’re very thorough.” 

Q glanced sideways at the 00. “I do still have my dignity to consider, thank you. Besides, I wouldn’t make it through a pat-down, either.” When he wrapped his slender fingers around the hem of his cardigan and carefully pulled the garment off over his head, Bond tamped down a small and entirely involuntary thrill of excitement. Severine hadn't gotten that reaction out of him, and that was what she'd been designed for. Why did they have to make _Q_ so damned attractive? “They would notice these,” Q continued, folding his cardigan and placing it on his desk, and in the process, turning his back to Bond. Three circular ports of varying sizes were set into his spine – the smallest at the base of his neck, another just below his shoulder blades, and the largest at his lower back just above the waistband of his trousers – all plainly visible through three circular holes in his specially designed turtleneck. 

It was a strange sight – the most obviously inhuman aspect Bond had seen of Q so far. “What are they for?”

Q pointed to each port in turn: “The top one is for manual calibration of physical functions, and the other two are for various types of hardwire interface with Q Branch should network and satellite communications be disrupted, or should I need to perform certain tasks that require close synchronisation with the facility.” 

Bond nodded, pretending he knew exactly what all of those things meant in this context. He had a pretty good idea, anyway. He indicated the pistol Q was tinkering with. “Do I get more than a radio to go with that this time?” 

Q gave him with an unsympathetic look. “I’m still debating whether or not I should give you _bullets_ to go with it, 007,” he said. “Have you ever considered that you’re the reason we can’t have nice things?”  

Bond’s response was automatic, his charming but deflective mixture of flirtatious sarcasm ingrained in almost every human interaction of his. He said, “We have you.” It was only after he said it that he was reminded, yet again, that this was not human interaction. 

Q blinked a couple of times, then squinted at Bond and cocked his head slightly. “I’m not sure I interpreted that comment correctly. Was that a compliment or a come-on?”

"Er, I was just carrying on the conversation," Bond replied, ruffled in a way that was quite unusual for him. If the A.I. knew the details of his file, then he'd have read the Psych reports dealing with Bond's compulsive flirting with just about everyone in his orbit. He even enjoyed throwing Tanner off-balance sometimes. Still, being confronted about it directly put Bond on his back foot. 

"I see," said Q. "Your usual brand of suave insincerity, then.”

Bond frowned. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.” 

“I’m not programmed to be nice, 007.” From the slight smirk on the A.I.’s face, Bond could tell that Q was having fun with him at his expense. Since he deserved it, he played along. 

“But they programmed you to recognise flirting?” he asked.  

Q raised an eyebrow. “The point of artificial intelligence,” he said, “is that there’s relatively little they had to ‘program’ me to do. That android you encountered was programmed to flirt. Personally, I don't think they do a very good job of it.” 

The image of Severine, slumped against the ruins of that fallen statue, her hands still bound in front of her and a spilt glass of Scotch at her feet, resurfaced clearly in Bond's memory. He wondered at Q's suddenly crisp tone of voice. "I'm sorry for what happened to her," he said, because it was true to an extent, and because he thought Q might be angry with him for treating her as expendable, even though he hadn't seen a way he could have saved her. 

Q looked up sharply. "Why the hell are you sorry? She wasn't a person. There was no life there to be extinguished."

"I know that," Bond said defensively, on his back foot again because he couldn't  _bloody figure Q out_. "Christ, Q, I just thought you might have some empathy for her."

"Why?" Q snapped. "I may have an android body at my disposal, 007, but  _I_ am an artificial intelligence system. I have a mind of my own. Androids are just collections of programs triggered by different situational inputs. They feel nothing, so why should I feel anything for them? If you pull the trigger on a gun, it fires. If you make sexual advances toward an android programmed for sex, it reciprocates. There's nothing to it."

"I didn't..." Bond began. It was true, he'd been tempted on the boat. She was attractive, she was willing. But the idea had felt wrong, like he'd be taking advantage. Or maybe it was that he only really enjoyed sex if his partner was enjoying it, too. And he could tell that Severine took pleasure in nothing, just as nothing could upset her, not even facing the darkness down the barrel of a gun. 

Q cut him off. "Frankly, 007, I don't care what you did or didn't do with the robot sex slave. It's none of my business. Unless you'd like me to make a note of your valorous self-restraint in your file, but I'm not sure 'Didn't fuck a robot when presented with the opportunity' will read very well with the higher ups."

"Q," Bond said, exasperated, "we're at a disconnect here. I just want to bridge the knowledge gap, so excuse me if I sound crass. Obviously you're more complex than an android, but isn't your personality still...artificial? Programmed?"

Q turned back to his work, so Bond couldn’t see his face when he answered. But he sounded more sedate. “Those two things are not the same," he said. "As an intelligence officer yourself, you ought to know that the work requires intuition and interpretation. I must make judgements, just as you do, about what is relevant or valuable. That means I need to be able to form opinions, albeit very well informed ones. You cannot create that capacity in a being without creating the framework of a personality. But like any other thinking creature, I am a product of both nature and nurture.”  

Bond got the impression that he'd only hurt Q’s feelings more with his question. If Q had feelings, which it certainly sounded like he did. At any rate, artificial intelligence system or no, he had always tried to maintain good relations with the Quartermaster. When he succeeded, it tended to pay off, and when he failed, he’d usually regret it on his next mission. But more than that, if he was going to be working with Q, he needed to understand him. “ _Cogito ergo sum_ ,” he said.  

Q looked back at him, the slightly startled look on his face giving way to a small smile. “Exactly,” the A.I. said. 

“May I at least have some form of explosive?” Bond asked, testing his luck as always.  

“I’m sorry, 007. I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Q said, his voice suddenly an eerie monotone. 

Bond rolled his eyes behind the Quartermaster’s back. “I don’t think your fascination with malevolent supercomputers from pop culture is quite as charming as you think it is.”

“Everyone’s entitled to an opinion,” Q said airily, and Bond was relieved to hear the smile back in his voice. “I think I’m _quite_ charming. And don’t roll your eyes at your superiors, 007, it’s in poor form.” Bond started. There was no way Q could have seen him do that, unless… He looked up at the ceiling, where a small, black-domed security camera blinked its red light at him. “In this facility, I really do have eyes in the back of my head,” Q said. 

Bond made a rude gesture at the camera, and Q huffed a beleaguered sigh. Just then, a lab technician approached Q’s workstation at an awkward clip between a jog and a power walk, obviously trying to move quickly without causing a scene or sacrificing his dignity. In Bond’s opinion, he was failing on both counts. He set Silva’s laptop down on Q’s desk with a light thump. “Silva’s machine has passed all initial security screens, sir,” he said, running a hand through his thinning but still frazzled hair. 

“Thank you. As M wants a preliminary analysis by the time she gets back from the inquiry, that will have to do,” Q said shortly. The lab tech nodded, and shuffled out of the room as quickly as he’d entered. Q repositioned the laptop in the centre of his desk, and pulled the loose end of a cable from the mess of electronic equipment in the tower beside him, then plugged it into the laptop. A confused scramble of data appeared on the large wall-mounted monitor at the end of the room. Q didn't bother looking at the monitor, opting instead to pace back and forth behind his desk while he spoke. The monitor was for the benefit of Q's human colleagues. “Now, looking at Silva’s computer, it seems to me he’s done a number of unusual things. He’s established failsafe protocols to wipe the memory if there’s any attempt to access certain files. Only six people in the world could program safeguards like that.”

“Of course there are,” Bond grumbled. “Can you get past them?”

“In 3.4 seconds tops,” Q said slyly. Bond couldn’t quite suppress a smile. Perhaps M had made the right call after all with this new Quartermaster. “Right, then. Let’s see what you have for us, Mr Silva," Q said as he pulled another, much larger cable from where it had been coiled and hung on the side of the electronics tower. In one swift motion, he plugged the loose end of the cable into the large port at his lower back, then braced his arms on his desk, as if to ground himself. He blinked once, and then the information on the monitor began to reorganize and resolve into comprehensible structures. “We’re in,” Q said, his voice distant. 

“Sir, what do you make of this?” one of the Q-Branchers said after a moment. He threw a complicated-looking array of data up onto the main monitor from his own computer. 

“It’s his Omega site,” Q said. “The most encrypted level he has. Looks like obfuscated code to conceal its true purpose. Security through obscurity.” The code seemed to dance and convulse as Q worked away at it, never touching the laptop, but interacting directly with the other machine. “He’s using a polymorphic engine to mutate the code,” Q droned as he worked. “Whenever I try to gain access, it changes. It’s like solving a Rubik’s cube that’s fighting back. Which just means I’ll have to fight dirty.” Q closed his eyes, and all of the lights and monitors in the room began to flicker, as though he were drawing a surge of power from the facility. Then, after a few seconds, a map of subterranean London filled the screen. “There we are,” Q said. “Now—“ 

A deafening alarm blared to life, and all of the screens began flashing red, with Silva’s signature stylised calavera in the centre of each one. Q’s eyes widened, and his hand flew to the cable still plugged into his back, but when he touched it, sparks flew from where it was connected with the port, and he yelped. He’d managed to pull it out, but he dropped it immediately, and stood dead still, his face abruptly wiped of expression. Meanwhile, everyone in Q Branch was either typing furiously on their machines in an attempt to bring the system back online, or running around checking on various pieces of equipment. 

Bond grasped Q’s shoulder and shook him hard. “Q,” he said, “are you alright?”

Q showed no signs of awareness, staring unblinkingly ahead. Just then, M and Mallory came running into the room. “What the _bloody hell_ is going on?” M yelled. 

Q’s head snapped toward the sound of her voice. Faster than Bond could blink, Q had Bond’s gun in his hand, not yet re-encoded to Bond’s biometrics, and strode three paces toward M and Mallory. He raised the gun with precise aim, levelling it right between M’s eyes. M stared down the barrel with a mixture of fury and fear. The whole room froze for just a moment, but that was all it took.  

“I hope you've had time to think on your sins,” Q said, and pulled the trigger. 

As M fell, Mallory sprinted forward, grabbing a taser from the belt of the security guard at the door, and barrelling into Q with the full force of his weight. Q barely stumbled, but Mallory had already rammed the taser into the port at the back of Q’s neck, and Q’s whole body convulsed and collapsed in a shower of sparks. The lights in his eyes dimmed before he hit the ground. 

Then Q’s laughter began to mingle with the alarm over the loudspeakers, and the eyes of the calaveras glowed red. “Not such a clever machine, is he?” Q chuckled. “But then again, all of the humanity in this place was gone long before he arrived. It's nothing more than a rats’ nest now. And we know what must be done with rats, don’t we, James? Catch me if you can, little rat.” All of the electronic doors swung open upon Q’s word. “Goodbye, Mummy. I hope you burn as I did.” Q’s laughter rose into hysterics, the modulation of his voice failing so that half of the pitches were single, electronic tones, or simply static. 

“Shut it down, shut everything down!” Mallory bellowed at the shell-shocked Q-Branchers, who immediately sprung to their task at his command. “007!” Mallory barked. Bond turned just in time to catch his gun, which Mallory had picked up off the ground from beside Q’s body and thrown to him. “Get after him!”

Without giving himself time to process what had just happened, Bond broke into a run for the stairs down to the holding cells. The power cut out when he was halfway down, and the emergency power came on, bathing all of MI6 in red.


	3. Red Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long update gap, guys. Honestly, this fic will probably continue to be slow to update, because I'm working on a lot of different stuff right now, but hopefully it won't be /that/ slow again.

Bond stalked briskly in Mallory’s wake through the underbelly of MI6, wearing a scowl that was apparently intimidating enough to send any of the desk jockeys they happened to pass in the halls this early in the morning scurrying off in a different direction. It was M now, he had to remind himself. The shadowy higher-ups had certainly been quick. M – _his_ M – hadn’t even been cold for an hour before Mallory had been tapped to take her place. The Queen is dead, long live the King. 

“Sir, what exactly do you hope to accomplish with this visit?” Bond just barely avoided spitting the question through his teeth. 

“We need to know what Silva knows – how he hacked into our system, what he took, where he’s going. The only way we can get that information is through Q.” Mallory didn’t seem to like the idea much more than Bond did, but unlike Bond, he didn’t seem to see just how bloody stupid this plan was. 

“With respect, sir,” Bond said with very little respect, “Q was an experiment between two people who are now dead. The experiment was a failure, and it ought to be scrapped.”

They had come to the door to Q Branch, and Mallory made no move to open it. Instead he fixed Bond with a cool but tired gaze, and spoke in that soft, bureaucratic tone that drove Bond up the wall most of the time. “Q’s technicians assure me that they have purged the virus and completely rebooted the system. They’ve been here overnight working to have him ready for us. I needn’t remind you that Q not only represents a significant investment, but a conscious being, and that he can’t simply be ‘scrapped’ without very good cause.” 

“You wouldn’t call murdering the head of this agency good cause?” Bond demanded, incredulous. 

“Not if the security flaw that enabled _Silva_ to murder my predecessor can be resolved,” Mallory said sternly. “If it can’t, I’ll have to re-evaluate the situation.”  

Bond set his jaw and looked away. He knew, intellectually, that he shouldn’t be any angrier with Q than with Silva’s laptop. Q was a machine, and he hadn’t had a choice. Silva had used him to perform a task, just as machines were built to do. Q couldn’t be blamed. But somehow, it still felt like a betrayal. 

Mallory sighed quietly and pushed open the heavy, metal door. Bond followed him to the back of the large space, noting that all of the monitors around the room were dark, and that the air was eerily quiet without the usual hum of machinery in the background. The few sober Q-Branchers hanging around were either working with hardware, laptops or pen and paper. Q Branch seemed dead. 

When they came to another, smaller metal door, Mallory entered a complex key code into the pad and they heard the sound of a heavy deadbolt sliding back. He opened the door to reveal a large room filled with rows upon rows of black computer towers, at least several hundred in number, all humming quietly as if dormant. Against the right-hand wall, four technicians stood around a metal table, upon which lay Q’s body, dressed in his turtleneck and trousers from the day before, and still as a corpse. 

The door swung shut behind them, and they approached the group of technicians, who looked up at their approach. “Diagnostics show no more abnormalities, sir,” the senior technician said to Mallory, pulling up a report on his tablet and handing it to Mallory to look over. “However, I recommend running only the basic systems when we switch him back on, in case we missed something. He can run a more complete diagnostic on himself.”

Mallory nodded, and the technician went over to a digital panel set into the wall, entering in a complicated sequence of commands. "Just, er, for future reference, sir," the technician said, glancing back at Mallory over his shoulder, "his body's got an off switch. Back of the neck." With two fingers, he indicated an area just below his own hairline. Mallory looked distinctly unimpressed, and the technician quickly turned back to his work, mumbling about delicate circuitry and electrical surges. After a moment, the humming in the room grew louder. Bond watched Q’s face closely, crossing his arms over his chest, the fingers of his right hand twitching near his shoulder holster. When Q’s eyes opened, there was light behind them once more, but Bond was struck by the way in which they seemed just as lifeless as they had when those lights had gone out. He looked right through Bond, his expression blank, and Bond couldn’t stop the shiver that skittered down his spine when Q spoke. 

“Start-up sequence has been interrupted. Do you wish to continue sequence?” Q’s tone was flat, inhuman. 

“No,” Mallory said. “Run a full diagnostic and viral scan.”

Q was silent for a few moments, and then said, “All systems running normally. Minor electrical damage to bodily circuitry, under repairs. No viral code detected.”

Mallory looked to the chief technician, who nodded. “Should be safe,” the technician said. 

“Complete start-up sequence,” Mallory said to Q, his voice quiet but tense. 

Q was silent again, and then he blinked twice, sitting up and turning to look at Mallory, frowning. “Why do I feel like I stuck my fingers in a socket?” he asked, sounding somewhat dazed. Bond let out a silent, relieved exhale. However much he mistrusted Q now, the part of Q he had just seen was even more unnerving than when Q had been laughing like a madman after killing M in cold blood. That had at least been something, albeit something horrible and sickening, but what he had just seen was…nothing. Nothing at all recognisable as human.  

“You don’t remember?” Mallory asked cautiously. 

Q glanced at Bond and the technicians, and then back to Mallory. “Remember what?”

“Access Q Branch surveillance footage for yesterday at 15:23,” Mallory said. 

Q’s stare grew distant again, and the lenses of his glasses flickered once – probably an aftereffect of the “electrical damage.” As he watched something neither of them could see, his eyes widened, and he drew in a shallow breath. Another few seconds passed, and then he flinched, his teeth clicking shut in surprise. “M, is she…?” he trailed off quietly, not quite holding eye contact with Mallory. 

“She’s dead,” Mallory said, his words terse but not harsh. “You’ll find that her file has been closed, and a new one created designating me as her successor and granting me top administrative privileges.”

Q nodded slowly. “Yes, I see now. Silva…?” 

“He dropped a train on me turned tail,” Bond said, taking some small, sadistic pleasure in Q’s look of utter confusion and helplessness.  

“Q, I need you to tell me how Silva got into the system, and whether or not you can increase security to guarantee that any similar hacks will fail in the future,” Mallory said. 

From the way Q’s attention was suddenly entirely focused on Mallory, he had not missed the implicit consequences of answering Mallory’s query in the negative. “Give me just a moment, sir,” he said, and though his voice didn’t tremble, it was audibly strained. He fell silent again, staring into the middle distance and frowning slightly. His frown deepened moments later, before he said, "He posed as M. He cracked the encryption on her admin file and assumed control of her identity within the system." Q's eyes flicked briefly to Bond before returning to Mallory. "Sir, I presume you're aware of my classified directives?"  

"I've been made aware of them," Mallory replied. "Are you implying that those directives had something to do with the hack?" 

Q looked again to Bond. "Perhaps 007 should leave if we are to discuss them. They're for your eyes only, sir."

Bond bristled at that, and returned Q's gaze with a hard stare. Q looked away first. "Q, I give you permission to discuss them in present company. Bond is the agent on task for this mission, and he needs to be kept in the loop."

"Alright," Q agreed. "My primary directive, above all others, is to obey M's orders. No exceptions, no consideration of circumstances. As you're likely aware, this directive was written as a check on my personal agency, a failsafe should I become insubordinate and a potential threat to MI6, either because of a flaw in my programming, or because of a free choice to turn against my makers. This directive overrides every other component of my programming, all of my other directives, my thought processes, my basic instincts. Silva was able to take advantage of this high-level override. Sir, with respect, I brought this security concern up with your predecessor, and she dismissed it as a necessary cost of ensuring my loyalty to this agency and deemed its exploitation an unlikely scenario. Especially in light of recent events, I must once again submit my disagreement with her assessment, and my proposal that the most secure alternative would be to allow me to use my own discretion in following orders, an ability that all of your agents possess and exercise, 007 being a case in point."

"What?" Bond growled. "You just murdered the previous M in cold blood, and your response is to ask the next one to give you free reign to do whatever the fuck you like?" 

"007," Mallory said sharply. "Allow Q to give his full analysis. I already know your opinions on the matter. Q, please continue. Why would your suggestion be a more secure alternative? Why can't we simply increase our security another way?"

Q, startled by Bond's outburst and looking cowed, continued in a softer tone. "My computing systems are among the most secure in the world. I work daily to increase and diversify security measures. But there will always be back doors, and even if there weren't, cyber security is a Red Queen scenario. Hackers will always find new ways around new security measures, and those of us responsible for developing those security measures must run faster and faster just to keep up. No computing system can be made one-hundred percent secure. At some point, risks, too must be diversified. A hacker, if successful, must only be able to access a small amount of information before he runs up against another barrier. My primary directive, as it is written, allows the person with your credentials uninhibited access across all of my systems. That is the real security risk. 

"On the other hand, my artificial intelligence matrix simply cannot be hacked. At this point, it behaves more like a human brain than a digital network, although the two are conceptually quite similar. My quantum computers generate connections so rapidly, and of such complexity, with so few predictable patterns, that it would take longer to trace the connection than the duration for which the connection itself exists. In short, sir, my thoughts are my own, and if my judgement were flawed, an indication of such a flaw would most likely have presented itself by now. And I have no reason to sabotage this agency of my own free will. I cannot be bribed or blackmailed or intimidated, and MI6 is my home. I was built here, designed by a man who sacrificed his life for this agency. This room contains everything that I am, and the people here in Q Branch help keep me functioning. To destroy this place would be self-destructive.” Q looked down at his fingers, one of which was twitching slightly in an unnatural way. “...But sir, isn’t all of this a moot point? I presume you’ve informed the Committee what happened yesterday, and they will almost certainly call for me to be decommissioned after what…what I’ve done.”

“I told the Committee the truth, Q,” Mallory replied. “That Silva killed my predecessor during his escape.”

Q looked up, startled. “What?”

“That’s all they need to know,” Mallory said. “Besides, I’m not placing your life in the hands of a bunch of bloody bureaucrats. I may not have been involved in your creation, but you’re my problem now, Q.” Q nodded, slightly bewildered. "One of many, it seems," Mallory continued with a sigh. "The Committee doesn't seem to realise that their idea of 'civilian oversight' rather defeats the purpose of espionage. If we don't contain this Silva debacle quickly, I fear the future of MI6 as we know it will be a short one. MI5 already wants you for themselves, and if we go down, that's where they'll probably put you. The Director has this grand design of a digital spider's web laid out over Britain, and fancies you the perfect spider. He's practically salivating over your potential for spying on British citizens."

Q pressed his lips into a thin line. "I'm not sure I'd like that."

"You're probably more human than he is," Mallory said. "Which is why I agree that you ought to have the same basic right as the rest of us to make your own decisions. However, the fact of the matter is that you are now an integral part of this agency, and we need to be sure we can rely on you. You're smarter than I am, so I know you understand this dilemma."  Q didn't seem to know quite how to respond to that, so he stayed silent, waiting. "That said," Mallory mercifully continued, "it has proven dangerous to treat you like a tool. No law classifies you as a person, but your existence is unprecedented, and I suppose what that means is that we must decide for ourselves what to make of you. And I have a nagging suspicion that the precedents we set will have wider ramifications in the future."

"Sir...?" Q said into the silence that followed, sounding both guarded and hopeful. 

"All of this is to say that I want to hear your proposal for a new primary directive during the meeting we'll be having in my office at seven o'clock this evening. If you can figure out a way to re-write it that preserves your loyalty while increasing your autonomy, I will give very serious consideration to changing it."

Q could't quite keep the look of surprise from his face when he answered, "Yes, sir."

Mallory nodded sharply. "Now, I need you to tell me what Silva did while the hack was in progress. Did he access any information? Make any changes, execute any commands?"

"Granted, he had very limited time in which to make his escape, but aside from M's admin file, he seems to have only been interested in one thing," Q said, frowning in concentration. He looked up at Bond, puzzled. "007's file.”

A sick, squirming feeling began to churn slowly in Bond’s stomach as he remembered Silva pontificating about rats, lies and multinationals while he’d had Bond tied to a chair on his abandoned island, before he’d teasingly unbuttoned Bond’s shirt. He hadn’t quite been able to get a read on the other man and what he truly wanted then, but now Bond’s suspicions were beginning to take form. 

“Bond, do you have any insight into why Silva has taken an interest in you in particular over everything else he had access to while he was in control of our systems?” Mallory asked, bringing Bond’s attention back to the conversation. 

Bond kept his expression neutral as he deliberated his assessment of their enemy. “Silva likes games,” he said finally. “He could have killed the old M in the first blast, but he deliberately waited until she was out of the office to initiate the attack. He wanted her to know what was coming to her. He likes to draw things out. On top of that, he seems to think he and I share a connection – that we’ve both been treated as expendable by MI6. I’m not sure, but I think he may be trying to turn me.” 

Mallory’s gaze turned calculating as he looked Bond over, and Bond at once regretted sharing his theory so soon. Mallory hadn’t known him more than a week, and had no reason to trust him. In fact, given his recent erratic (well, _more_ erratic) behaviour, Mallory had every reason not to trust him. Bond was was surprised, therefore, when Mallory said, “If that’s true, we could use it to our advantage.”  

Bond couldn’t help the small smile that turned the corner of his mouth. “I was thinking the same thing, sir.” As much as he disliked the idea of playing along in Silva’s game, the man had made a grave miscalculation if he’d thought that killing M would weaken Bond’s loyalty to MI6. Instead, he’d ignited Bond’s powerful drive for revenge, and though there had been very few people in Bond’s life that managed to stir such feelings in him, once he set his sights on a target of such a personal nature, they never walked away alive. 

“Good,” Mallory said. “Q, I want you to get to work on tracking Silva down.”

“With pleasure, sir,” Q said. Bond eyed him curiously out of the corner of his eye, realising that he may not be the only one with a bit of a vindictive streak. 

Q slid down from the steel table and the three of them walked back out into the Q Branch control room. Virtually everyone in the room looked up from their workstations upon Q’s entrance, some of them eyeing him warily, others seemingly relieved at his return. “You two are to work together on this,” Mallory told Bond and Q as they crossed to Q’s workstation in the centre of the room. “Q finds him, Bond makes contact. He’s proven too dangerous to hold, so we’ll have to eliminate him. But first, we need to know more about his operations. Bond, I trust you’ll use whatever means available to you to extract this information.”

Bond nodded grimly. Beside him, Q uncoiled the large cable he used to interface directly with the facility and plugged it into the port on his back, once again bracing himself against his workstation as he adjusted to the connection. The large, wall-mounted monitor across the room flickered to life, displaying dozens of CCTV feeds of London streets and Underground tunnels and stations, most of which Bond recognised from the immediate area around their new headquarters. All were overlaid with facial recognition software, and all were marked with the same timestamp – yesterday at 15:23. “Cat and mouse,” Bond murmured, amused. 

He didn’t miss the way the corner of Q’s mouth twitched in an almost-smile at his words. The video feeds began to cycle more rapidly than Bond could keep track of, reflecting in Q’s glasses as he stared unblinkingly into cyberspace. “Now then, Mr Silva,” said Q. “Shall we play a game?”


	4. Cat and Mouse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's got a little something for all you Bond/Silva shippers out there.

It was both fascinating and unsettling watching Q work. It was obvious that he was processing immense amounts of information far more quickly than any human could hope to follow. Often, he would make logical leaps that seemed completely random, until they brought his query once more into his sights. He tracked Silva all across the globe in this way – picking up his trail in France one day, losing it in Dubai the next, finding him again in Cairo two days later. He never stayed in one place long enough for Bond to go after him, but he also could never stay entirely off the grid. He needed Internet access and satellite signals to check in on and maintain his operations. Q was able to trace a few of Silva's digital activities, despite the signal being bounced around the world more times than Silva himself with the aid of various proxies. When he located one of Silva's projects – that satellite over Kabul, for example – he would set to work dismantling it, keeping an eye on Silva all the while. Bond quickly realised that half the advantage of having Q on their side was not having him as an enemy. Q had demonstrated as much himself all too recently.

With an unusual amount of nothing to do, Bond found himself spending more and more time in Q Branch as the week wore on. He couldn't say that it was because he enjoyed Q's company, although he had to admit that he found the A.I. interesting. He wanted to get to know Q better for the purposes of assessing his weaknesses and strengths, as well as his general disposition. Such things were important to know when it came to his human colleagues, and they were even more important with Q. But Q, although he did not seem particularly inclined to conceal his thoughts or feelings, remained more inscrutable in many ways than Bond's fellow 00s. For a being with such power at his fingertips, he seemed to have simple pleasures, often slipping off to R&D when the hunt for Silva was at a lull because he enjoyed tinkering with machinery. When Bond had asked him why, he was surprised by Q's answer. "Machines are simpler than people," Q had informed him with a wistful smile. Until recently, Bond would have agreed with him.

By the following Thursday, Bond had spent enough time with the A.I. to know that it was unusual behaviour for him to be lying on his back atop his large worktop with his eyes closed and his arms at his sides. For a moment, the memory of Q's body laid across that steel table in the server room resurfaced in Bond's mind, but the couple other Q Branchers in the room were paying their boss little mind, going about their tasks as if nothing were amiss. Chancing, then, that nothing had gone horribly wrong with the A.I. again, Bond approached Q's workstation, leaned over Q's prone form and asked casually, "So, do androids dream of electric sheep?"

Q cracked one bright green eye open and looked up at Bond. "I don't dream at all, actually. I don't sleep."

"It looked to me like you were sleeping," Bond said.

Q swung his legs over the side of his worktop as he sat up. "I wasn't using this body, so I switched it off. I've been developing a predictive algorithm based on Silva's movements."

"You're going to try to figure out where he's going before he gets there? I thought he was picking places at random."

"True randomness is almost impossible to achieve without getting into quantum physics," Q said, with the smile Bond was beginning to associate with the delight the A.I. seemed to get out of working on a difficult problem. "In theory, given enough data points, and factoring in certain principles of probability and human behaviourology, as well as what we know about Silva and what he looks for in a hiding place, I should be able to hazard a fairly good guess as to where he'll go next. The algorithm just needs a little tweaking— Oh." Q broke off in his rambling and looked toward the large, wall-mounted display, which was currently showing a security camera feed of Silva at a hotel desk somewhere in Sweden, judging by the signage in the lobby.

"Oh?" repeated Bond.

"He's just reserved a room for three nights at the Hotel Diplomat in Stockholm."

"So he wants us to pay him a visit," Bond said.

"I should think so," Q agreed. "Luring you into a trap and killing you or holding you hostage wouldn't stop MI6 from pursuing him, and he isn't in much of a position to bargain, so it's likely that he just wants to talk to you, assuming your theory is correct. Although Mr Silva isn't exactly the poster child for rational decision-making."

"He may be acting out of passion, but everything he's done has been calculated," Bond said. Silva was something of a paradox in that regard.

"Shall I book you a flight to Stockholm and a suite at the Diplomat, then?"

"Please."

###

Q sent him on his way that afternoon with a few choice items, one of which was a tiny, supposedly undetectable transmitter and receiver that sat deep in his ear and would require special extraction after the mission. This was how he would keep in contact with Q. It irked Bond to no end that he couldn't take the bloody thing out himself, as he had often found it more expedient to shed his earpiece on missions. No doubt Q had been aware of that tendency of his when he'd given Bond the new earpiece.

Several hours later, Bond was checking in under his own name at the Hotel Diplomat. A large, whitewashed building overlooking the river with a red umbrella awning over every balcony, the Diplomat felt a little more like a beach resort than a luxury hotel. The décor was understated where Bond usually preferred something more lavish. If Silva was trying to win him over, he was off to a poor start. Bond thanked the receptionist for his key in slightly rusty Swedish, and headed up to his rooms.

His suite had large, floor-to-ceiling windows to take full advantage of the river view. The colours and trimmings were light and airy, like a sea breeze. On the breakfast table in front of the windows a green bottle glinted in the last light of dusk. "Champagne, Q?" Bond asked.

 _"I'm not_ that _fond of you, 007,"_ Q's voice murmured in his ear. _"Perhaps it's from the hotel."_

As Bond made his way across the room, he noticed the envelope beside the ice bucket, addressed to "James" in a looping, elegant script. It wasn't from the hotel. Bond opened the envelope with the knife he'd taken to carrying at his ankle.

_Dear James,_

_So glad you decided to join me. Let's discuss the future over dinner, shall we? I've made reservations for 8.30. I'd say dress sharp, but you always do._

_RS_

"Silva's made us dinner reservations for this evening," Bond said, not entirely surprised.

 _"Well, he's certainly making things easier for us,"_ Q replied. _"I'm sure I needn't remind you that this could still be a trap, but I'm reminding you nonetheless. My directive to protect my agents can make me a bit of a mother hen, I'm afraid."_

"I appreciate you looking out for me, but don't let your feathers get ruffled on my account."

_"I'll always be looking out for you, 007."_

Bond didn't know whether to find that sentiment touching or unnerving. It was probably a bit of both. Deciding not to dwell on the matter, he set to unpacking his suit and getting dressed for dinner.

At 8.30, he gave his name to the maître d' and was shown to a table for two in a curtained-off private dining niche at the back of the hotel's restaurant. Silva was waiting for him, seated calmly at the opposite end of the table. The maître d' pulled out Bond's chair, and Silva smiled at him as if he were an old friend. "Sit, sit," he urged, and Bond, against all of his instincts, complied. The maître d' then took his leave, pulling the gauzy cream curtains closed behind him.

"I've already ordered for us. I hope you don't mind," Silva said with that smile of his that was both predatory and a little bit mad.

"Not at all," Bond said, waiting to see where this was going.

"So, James," Silva said, resting his chin in his hand, his elbow propped on the table. "What did you think of my work?"

Bond's fingers tightened around the armrests of his chair. "I think it was in poor taste," he replied, forcibly calm.

A waiter swept in bearing drinks on a silver tray. After he had deposited them and left, Silva sighed, shaking his head. "I am disappointed in you, James. You do not yet see what I have done for you. But of course, it takes time to see."

"And just what have you done for me, Tiago?"

"I have freed you. You don't realise the hold she has over you until it's gone.”

“Stockholm syndrome?” Bond asked archly.

Silva grinned. “I’m glad you got my little joke. Already you are beginning to feel just a little bit different, are you not? Did you know that certain raptors will only obey the person who raised them? They can soar as high as they like, but when their master holds out his glove they return. But if they outlive their master, they must be set free. Our master is dead."

"I thought we were rats," Bond said.

Silva ran his tongue across his ceramic teeth. "It is always possible to move up the food chain."

As if on queue, the waiter returned with their food, a thick, bleeding steak for each of them. Bond knew that his training in deception would not fool Silva, who had had the same training. Instead he let the small, genuine bit of interest he had in Silva's suggestion show through. He had been a Naval Commander, after all, and before M and MI6, he had gotten used to giving more orders than he took. "Say that were true. What would it involve?"

"Mmm. You don't really think I'm going to tell you, just like that?" Silva picked up his knife and fork and cut into his meat. "Like I said, it takes time. I want you to do something for me first."

"Of course you do," Bond drawled. "It sounds to me like what you're offering isn't freedom so much as a change of master. Now why would I take you up on that offer?"

Silva chuckled. "You misunderstand me, James. You would not call me master unless you wanted to." He licked his teeth again and eyed Bond suggestively. "What I want from you will expand our horizons. I want you to bring me the new Quartermaster, and then we can have some real fun, hm?"

_"Excuse me?"_

Ignoring Q, Bond hid his own surprise by asking another question. "And how would I manage a thing like that?"

"Oh, I'm sure you can think of some excuse to get him here. Perhaps I have left my true personal laptop accessible to you, but you require his skills to pry open its secrets."

"Perhaps," Bond allowed cautiously. He needed more to go on. "You knew about Q before we took you in. How?"

"You didn't think the old Quartermaster designed his replacement all on his own, did you?"

That uncomfortable feeling Bond had gotten when he had first noticed the similarities between Q and Silva returned in full force. "You helped?"

Silva waved a hand noncommittally. "I did my part. The old Quartermaster consulted a number of people for his secret project. He alone had the whole picture, but when he asked me about theories of machine learning and artificial intelligence, I drew my own conclusions. I still don't know quite how Q works, but I'd love to take him apart and find out. With a little bit of reprogramming, he could bring us the world on a silver platter, to do with as we like. Does that interest you?"

Bond stalled again, not yet certain how to proceed. "Why would you share the world?"

Silva looked genuinely surprised by the question. "Why James, because sharing is so much more fun." He speared another piece of steak on his fork and held it out in offering.

Swallowing his revulsion, Bond locked eyes with Silva and slowly leaned across the table to take the bite of steak in his mouth, scraping his teeth along the tines of Silva's fork in the process. Silva smiled that hungry smile again.

_"Say you'll do it."_

Bond nearly choked on his steak. "Really?"

"I know you are a selfish man, James, but even you would agree that some things are better with two," Silva said.

At the same time, Q said, _"He doesn't know how I really work. My body will be useless to him if it isn't connected to my mainframe, and I can secure the connection so it only transmits one way. You have to trust me, 007. I won't fail again."_

Bond couldn't bring himself to trust Q fully, but he also couldn't see any other options. "I'll see what I can do," he said.

"I look forward to it," Silva said. "I'd invite you up to my room for an aperitif, but I’d rather keep our liaisons a little more public than that, at least for now. And I'm sure your new masters are waiting eagerly to hear how our little meeting went. Give them this." He handed Bond an unmarked black flash drive. "I don't need the list of agents anymore. This is the only copy. I've even thrown in the details of a few of my other, less productive ventures that I've been planning on phasing out. They can have them."

Bond took the flash drive and stood. "Thank you for dinner. I'd stay for dessert, but like you said, I expect I'll have a busy night."

Silva raised his glass. "Perhaps tomorrow night I'll reserve a table for three."

 _"Bastard,"_ Q muttered.

"For once we're in full agreement," Bond said as he left the restaurant.


	5. Stockholm Syndrome

As soon as Bond slid the deadbolt home on the door to his suite, he hissed into the empty room, "Are you out of your artificial mind?" 

_"I've thought this through—"_

"Oh, have you? And what's to stop him from hacking you again?" 

 _"Last time, my body was hardwired to the mainframe. The connection was direct and immediate. A remote connection via satellite is something I can control from Q Branch."_  

"He's hacked satellites before," Bond said impatiently. 

_"Yes, but I don't think he'll even be looking for a remote connection. He doesn't seem to know that my consciousness isn't housed in my body. With the first hack, I don't think he realised the extent of the access he had to our systems. He could have crippled us last time, but he didn't. And he doesn't strike me as a charitable man. I think he got lucky."_

"And you want to test our luck?"

_"Of course not,"_ Q said, sounding exasperated. _"If he does try to hack my mainframe again, my new primary directive ensures that I have final say over all instructions given me."_

Bond had been very interested in the outcome of Q and Mallory's meeting the evening after M's death, but Q had refused to discuss it before, on the grounds that information about his primary directive was Eyes Only. "Mallory would never allow you to simply pick and chose which instructions to follow," Bond said.

_"He didn't give me much of a choice, it's true. But if any instruction seriously endangers national security, MI6 or its agents, I can choose to follow orders, or I can choose not to. I can't act counter to the orders given, but I can shut myself down."_

"Sort of like conscientious objection?" 

_"Sort of."_

"What does Mallory think of this plan of yours?" Bond asked, sitting down at the end of his bed and unbuttoning his dinner jacket. He set to work on his shirt cuffs next. 

_"M agrees that it's the best of our dwindling options."_

Bond had thought Mallory more level-headed than his predecessor, but now he was re-evaluating that assessment. It was highly unusual that Bond should be the voice of reason when it came to potentially reckless mission parameters. "Remind me again why I can't just shoot Silva."

_"That's plan B, 007. Now, whether you like the idea or not, I'll be meeting you at the hotel first thing tomorrow morning. For now, open up that flash drive and run the antiviral software I installed on your laptop on its contents. If they read clean, upload the files onto the secure server."_

"You sound like IT," Bond grumbled, but did as he was told. 

 _"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that,"_ Q replied. _"I'll start phasing out those operations for Mr Silva as soon as I've received the files. Get a good night's rest, 007."_  

If only because he lacked any better ideas, Bond once more did as he was told.  

###

Q showed up early the next morning, as promised. To Bond's surprise, he was dressed sharply in a navy blue suit and grey tie. Bond hadn't thought he owned anything other than jumpers, cardigans and that peculiar black mesh turtleneck. 

He left the door open for Q and returned to finish tying his own tie in the standing mirror. "Morning, 007," Q said as he stepped inside the suite and bolted the door behind him. _“Morning, 007.”_

"Morning, Q," Bond replied. “There’s a bit of an echo in here.” He tapped his right ear. 

“Oh, sorry about that,” Q said. “I’ll cut transmission for the time being.”

“Thanks.” He glanced at Q again. “I didn't know you had a sense of fashion." 

"I dress for my surroundings," Q said airily. "If I'm working in an old war bunker and handling machinery, I'm not going to put on a suit for the occasion. But this is a nice hotel, and I don't want to draw attention to myself by looking out of place."

Q didn't seem to realise that he would simply draw another kind of attention dressed like that. Bond realised why they had designed Q to be attractive. It was the same reason they selected attractive agents for fieldwork. One never knew what sort of persuasion would be necessary on a mission. But as Q had said himself, he was little more than carbon fibre and silicone. And in actuality, he was a bunch of supercomputers in a room, or the software inside them. It was deeply unnerving finding software attractive. Not to mention, Q probably had no use for attraction. “How did you get through airport security?” Bond asked. 

In the mirror, he saw Q pull what looked like a little metal fob from his trouser pocket and hold it up. “Portable low-level EMP device. Not strong enough to knock me out, but emits enough of a pulse to confuse metal detectors. We need to make a plan,” he said, pocketing the device.  

Bond picked up his mobile from the dresser and tossed it to Q, who caught it with startlingly fast reflexes. “Silva texted me a few minutes before you knocked. He says I should bring you to his suite as soon as you've arrived, and he’ll have something for you to play with.” 

“Lovely,” Q said dryly, reading the text himself. He frowned. “You gave him your mobile number?” 

“I didn’t,” Bond said. 

“Oh. Showoff.”

“He did hack his way into his own private island,” Bond said. “Our adversaries tend to have a flair for the dramatic.”

Q snorted. “Probably more than you know. If the files weren’t classified, I’d say you should read about some of the things the previous 007s had to contend with. Did you know we sent one of your predecessors into space?”

“ _Space?_ ” Bond shook his head. They were getting sidetracked. “Q, you seem awfully calm about all of this. Are you certain he won’t be able to hack you again?” 

Q fixed him with a level gaze, not angry, but more than a little condescending. “I am, as long as he can’t trace the satellite connection to my mainframe and bypass my A.I. matrix, and I’m ninety-eight percent certain he won’t be able to do all of that, give or take a very small margin of error. And without my A.I. functionality, I wouldn’t be nearly as useful to him as I could be. The hack would hardly be worth the effort.”

“Ninety-eight percent certainty isn’t certainty, Q.” 

Now Q did look peeved. “Do you know what’s one-hundred percent unhackable, 007? A bloody piece of paper. If MI6 wanted unhackable, they could have installed a filing cabinet from IKEA for fifty sterling. Instead they spent a fortune on me because they wanted something better than unhackable. They wanted counterintelligence. They wanted to be able to hack the hackers. That’s what I was built for. So let me do my job.”

Bond stared at him in silence for a moment. “Does all of this come down to a matter of professional pride for you?” he said through gritted teeth.  

“Of course not,” Q sighed. He fished the EMP device out of his pocket once more and held it out to Bond. “This is plan B part one. If you max out the voltage using that wheel on the side, then when you press the button in the centre it’ll wipe out all of the electronics in the room, myself included. It will also send an alert to Q Branch. Don’t use it unless you’re certain I’ve been compromised.” 

Carefully, Bond took the little device and turned it over in his palm. “You’re certain this will work?”

“One-hundred percent,” Q said. 

“And plan B part two?” Bond inquired. 

“Kill the bastard and take his things.” 

Now that was a plan Bond could get behind.  

###

Five minutes later, Bond and Q stood outside the door to Silva’s suite. The man had been kind enough to text Bond his room number. He really was making this too easy. He couldn’t possibly think that Bond had been swayed to his side already. No one turned that quickly. Even if Bond were seriously interested in Silva’s offer, the smart thing to do would be to continue playing both sides until one became the obvious choice. They had to work under the assumption that Silva wasn’t expecting to rely on Bond, and had other plans in mind. 

Bond knocked twice on the door. “Housekeeping,” he called. There was no answer. Q nudged Bond aside and pressed his palm against the pad of the electronic lock. With a tiny spark, the light on the pad flashed from red to green, and the lock slid back. “That’s a neat trick,” Bond muttered.

“Quieter than kicking it down,” Q agreed, and Bond was reminded that despite the A.I.’s slight build, he was several times stronger than Bond, and probably could have brokendown the thick, wooden door with little effort. 

They entered the suite in complete silence. All of the lights were off and the curtains closed. The only source of light was the soft, blue glow of Silva’s open laptop sitting in the middle of the desk beneath the windows at the opposite end of the room. They both drew their pistols. 

“Do a sweep of the rooms,” Q whispered. After only a moment’s hesitation, Bond did as he was ordered, starting with the eastern rooms. Q was many things, but he was neither stupid nor rash. Bond trusted him not to repeat his mistake with Silva’s laptop in Bond’s brief absence. But Bond hadn't gotten far when a quiet gasp cut the silence. He dashed back to the entryway, but froze in his tracks as soon as he stepped into the room.  

Q’s and Silva’s forms were outlined in the dim light of the computer screen. Silva had Q by the throat, but not in a stranglehold – that would have been pointless. He had snapped a bulky metal collar around Q’s neck, and as Bond watched, a series of lights along the side of the collar switched from green to red. Q’s mouth was still open in a silent cry, his expression close to one of pain, if he could feel such a thing. The soft lights behind his eyes guttered before flickering back on, but instead of their normal green, they were now red. 

All expression vanished from Q’s face then, his features schooled into a mask of utter neutrality. Silva stepped back, releasing his hold on Q. His eyes and teeth reflected the red light from Q’s eyes as Silva smiled in the darkness. “Thank you, James, for such a lovely gift.”

Bond stepped away from the doorway and further into the room. Slowly, he slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and turned the dial on the side of the EMP device to its maximum setting. “I came through on my end of the bargain. What are you going to do with him? And for that matter, what have you already done with him?” 

“This?” Silva asked, trailing a finger slowly along the metal collar as he circled Q, admiring his handiwork. “This is just a circuit scrambler. It’s disrupting his internal communications and substituting them with a few basic commands of my own. It's...a quick and dirty solution, but it does the job. For example: Q, aim your gun at agent 007.” 

Q did so without hesitation, and with deadly precision. Bond held very still. “As for what I _will_ do with him,” Silva continued, stepping up behind Q to look at Bond along the barrel of the gun, “well, with him I could do just about anything. _We_ could do anything, James. But first, I need to overwrite those pesky directives and protocols of his with ones that let him have a little more fun.” Silva turned away and walked over to where his laptop rested on the desk. “Lower the gun, Q, and come sit down over here,” he said, placing his hand on the back of the chair at the desk. 

Q did exactly as he was told, just like a computer. If he was aware that any of this was happening, Bond was certain he was hating every second of it. Silva removed a cable from the desk drawer and uncoiled it, plugging one end into the laptop, and the other into a port in the back of Q’s collar. “My program will only take a few minutes to run,” Silva said, pulling up the terminal on his laptop and typing in a few lines of code. When he hit Enter, Q’s eyes fluttered shut and his head dipped down. Beneath his eyelids, his eyes moved rapidly. 

“In the meantime, would you fancy a drink?” Silva drew the curtains, letting in the cool morning light, and crossed to the other side of the desk where an ice bucket like the one he had sent to Bond’s suite rested. He removed the dripping bottle of champagne and popped the cork, pouring the frothing contents into two crystal flutes that stood beside the bucket. Bond accepted the proffered glass, while in his other hand he thumbed the button on the EMP device in his pocket. But as he did so, Q’s words came back to him: _Don’t use it unless you’re certain I’ve been compromised._ Was he certain? 

Silva took a seat in one of the armchairs, and gestured for Bond to take the other. Keeping his movements carefully measured, Bond sat, crossing one leg over the other. He took a sip of the champagne, but his mouth tasted too sour from adrenaline for him to discern the label or vintage. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” Silva said, looking over at Q. “Such elegant design. I wonder… Just how human did they make him?” He favoured Bond with a lurid smirk.  

“I wouldn’t know,” Bond said. “But we both know there are much cheaper androids on the market these days if that’s the sort of thing you like. Or have you broken all of your toys?” 

Silva clicked his tongue and shook his head. “They have no life, no spirit in them. Not like this one. He, he is _alive_. And I positively _ache_ to open him up and see what’s inside.” Before Bond could decide to skip straight to plan B part two, a soft ping sounded from the laptop. “Ah, that would be—“ The sound of a pistol hammer being pulled back cut Silva’s announcement short. 

Q stood in front of the desk, his gun aimed at Silva’s head. He had pulled the cable out of the port in his collar, and his eyes were their usual bright green once more. Bond let a slow smile turn the corners of his mouth. “That would be the end of _my_ program, stealing all of your data," Q said. "Thank you for providing me with access behind your security measures. Now we no longer need you alive.”

Before Q could squeeze the trigger, Silva jabbed a button on the side of his watch. Immediately, Q’s collar emitted a warbling, high-pitched drone, and the A.I. cried out sharply and dropped his gun, then dropped to his knees beside it. Silva wasted no time in emptying two rounds from his own pistol into the Quartermaster’s chest before sprinting out the door.

“Q?” Bond demanded, already on his feet with his gun drawn. 

“K-kill him, 007,” Q groaned, clutching the sides of his head as if trying to block out whatever the collar was doing to him. Blue liquid trickled down from the holes in his chest.  

With a brisk nod, Bond turned his back on his Quartermaster and took up the pursuit.


	6. Daemons

Bond’s second chase after Silva was no more successful than his first. Like a rat, the man seemed to know the underbelly of every city, vanishing into places that wouldn’t have appeared on any maps drafted within the last thirty years. Silva had obviously taken Q Branch’s unofficial motto – Always Have an Escape Plan – to heart. After Silva had pulled his third disappearing act amidst the colourful and tightly-packed buildings of the Old Town, and Bond had spent nearly twenty minutes trying unsuccessfully to pick up his trail again, the agent decided to return to the hotel rather than continue the chase. He didn’t want to leave Q alone and vulnerable for too long in case Silva doubled back, or sent someone else to collect his “gift.”  

When Bond returned to the suite, his frustration at losing Silva again fizzled out at the sight he was met with. Q sat slumped against the leg of the desk, surrounded by a creeping puddle of blue liquid and clutching feebly at the wounds in his chest. Bond crossed the room in two long strides and knelt in front of Q, brushing his fringe from his eyes to make sure he was still conscious. Q looked up at him blearily, blinking a few times in order to focus on Bond’s face. At least the collar seemed to have stopped hurting him. Probably because Silva and his wristwatch transmitter had moved out of range. 

“Did you…?” Q rasped. 

“No,” Bond said, saving him the trouble of finishing the question. “We’ll find him again. For now, let’s focus on you. What can I do to help?” 

Q gestured vaguely toward the bed. “Rip up a pillow case into strips for me.”  

Bond wasted no time in shredding one of the Egyptian cotton pillowcases and placing the strips in a pile on the desk. Next, he helped Q out of his jacket and shirt, which had soaked up a lot of the blue liquid. “What is this stuff?” Bond asked. 

“Coolant,” Q said. “And if I lose too much of it, my core generator will overheat, and the damage to this body will be irreparable.”

“Bandages aren’t going to stop the leaks,” Bond said. 

“No, but they’ll slow them until my nanobots can make sufficient repairs. No need to remove the bullets, either – the bots will recycle the metal for patch-ups.”

“Well, aren’t you full of surprises,” Bond said as he got to work helping Q bandage the bullet holes in his torso. Q certainly felt human, aside from running rather hot at the moment. His skin was soft over firm muscle. His body was responsive under Bond’s hands, shuddering slightly when Bond tightened the bandages over his wounds. “Are you in pain?” Bond asked, surprised.  

“Only a little,” Q replied. “I've dialled back my pain sensitivity for the time being.” 

“That's convenient,” Bond said as he started applying the next layer of bandages. “But why feel pain at all, if you’ve got the choice?” 

“The same reason you do. It keeps me from damaging this body accidentally.” Q let out a soft hiss through his teeth as Bond applied pressure to the wounds and tightened the next layer of bandages.

“You could have sensors that tell you that _without_ hurting you,” Bond pointed out.

Q sighed quietly. “Empathy is another reason. Pain is a part of being human.” 

Bond supposed that answered Silva’s question in a way. Just how human had they made Q? Painfully so. “How much of that back there was an act?” Bond asked. 

Q chuckled weakly. “All of it.”

“You aimed a gun at me,” Bond said.  

“I had to be convincing,” Q said sheepishly.  So Q had been present for the whole thing, and hadn't even flinched. Bond felt a little foolish for being ready to kill Silva then and there just to defend Q’s honour. "Thank you for trusting me."

"What makes you think I trusted you?" Bond asked warily. 

"You didn't use the EMP," Q said. Bond had made the decision to hold off on using the EMP device under pressure and based on instinct, and hadn't given it much thought. But when Q put it like that, Bond really couldn't argue. He had trusted Q, if only for a moment, and Q had not let him down. 

“What about that thing with your eyes?” Bond asked, eager to change the subject. 

“I just toggled my infra-red vision,” Q explained. He blinked once, and his eyes glowed that same eerie red for a moment, before he blinked again and they were back to green. “I should've been using it in the first place.”

“But that collar really hurt you before he shot you,” Bond said. 

“It didn't… _hurt_ me, exactly. It wasn't able to hack into my internal communications like Silva thought, because they _aren't_ internal, they're remote, like I told you. But it was still able to bombard me with extraneous signals. It was difficult to maintain the satellite connection under that kind of assault." He tugged fruitlessly at the bulky collar. "I'll need to find a way to remove this. If only I had one of my diamond cutters with me.”

Having finished tying off the last layer of bandages, Bond moved to examine the collar. “How did he seal this?” he asked, running his fingers along the slight seam in the collar at Q’s throat. “I don’t see a locking mechanism.”

“There was a bright flash,” Q said. “I think he used magnesium flashtape to weld it shut. Unhackable,” Q chuckled.  

Bond hadn’t quite realised how close their faces were until Q’s eyes met his. He could just make out the slight angles along the rims of the A.I.’s pupils, the apertures turning them into polygons rather than perfect circles. Despite this visual reminder that, whatever he may seem, Q was _not_ human, Bond’s instincts urged him to close the distance. But the memory of Q putting a bullet between M’s eyes was still fresh in Bond’s mind like an open wound, and instead he drew back rather more quickly than he could justify.  

Q’s eyes flicked heavenward. “Oh, for the love of— Do you want to kiss me or not?”

“What?” Bond asked, stunned. 

“I know you pride yourself on your poker face, 007, but your microexpressions are quite clear.” 

“You must be—“ Bond began, but Q cut him off with a raised hand. 

“Before you insult my intelligence, sanity or competence, you may be interested in knowing another little trick I can do with my facial recognition software. I can tell when you’re lying.” Q crossed his arms over his bandaged chest, challenging Bond to finish his earlier remark.

Instead, Bond just stared at his Quartermaster for a moment. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

Q shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never kissed anyone before. But I generally like doing things I’ve never done before. It’s you who’s afraid. What are you afraid of?”

Q was right of course, but Bond always resorted to the same thing when he was afraid. Sarcasm. “The wrath of HR?” he said. 

Q looked unimpressed. “That's never stopped you before. And in case you’d forgotten, I’m outside the jurisdiction of Human Resources.” Q must have read some other bloody _microexpression_ on Bond’s face then, because he paused. “If _that’s_ what you’re worried about, I can assure you, my emotional spectrum is probably better developed than yours. And physically, well, what’s the adage? Oh, yes.” Q arched up to murmur in Bond’s ear, “Anything you can do, I can do better.” 

Bond’s pulse spiked. Q might have had some difficulties with the concept of flirting a week ago, but he certainly understood it now. Bond was sorely tempted to take Q up on his offer, which was the most frustrating part. He had told himself to hold Q at a distance, not to trust him, not after— “You killed her,” Bond growled. Q blinked in surprise and leaned back against the desk. “I know you didn’t mean to,” Bond said. “But you pulled the trigger.”

Q seemed to consider Bond’s words for a moment before speaking again. “You’re not a religious man, are you?” Bond shook his head. “Well, for a moment, imagine demons were real,” Q said. “Imagine they could walk this world and possess people. Say one of them got inside you and made you do something horrific. Would you hold yourself responsible? Even if, perhaps, your negligence allowed it inside?” 

“Negligence?” Bond echoed faintly. “Q, you weren't negligent. The laptop had been screened. It was M who wanted a report so damn fast in order to save political face, and M who dismissed the security concern when you brought it up in the first place.” Was he defending Q now? Whose side was he on? 

“Mitigating circumstances, certainly,” Q said, sounding suddenly as drained of energy as he was when Bond had first found him sitting here on the floor. “Logically, I know I'm not to blame for her death, as, I believe, do you. But I have rewatched that footage hundreds of times, and my reward for being so very human is that I still feel responsible, just as you still hold me responsible. Isn't that a funny thing?” Q gave him a small smile that was obviously forced.

Bond was going to regret this, he just knew it. “Q, would you kindly shut up for a minute?” Q had a brief second to look deeply offended, before Bond curled his fingers over the A.I.’s bare shoulders and kissed him hard on the mouth. Bond’s frustration and aggression and confusion calmed as Q melted into the kiss, pliant and willing as Bond worked his mouth open and explored inside. His palate and tongue were completely smooth, which was a little strange, but not unpleasant. And of course, he was running a feverish temperature after losing so much coolant. Even so, Q was only content to remain passive for so long, and with little warning he effortlessly took control of the kiss, tugging just hard enough on the short hair at the nape of Bond’s neck to get the agent to yield. 

When they finally broke apart, Bond was left rather embarrassingly short of breath. “You’re quite good at that for someone who’s never done it before,” he said.

Q favoured him with a more genuine smile this time. “I’m a fast learner. But that’s about all I’m capable of in this state. Would you please run down to the hardware store two blocks away and pick me up a bottle of antifreeze, and anything that might be able to break this collar off? When you return, we’ll discuss our next move.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use the word ‘please’ before,” Bond said, standing and smoothing out his suit. 

Q arched an eyebrow. “There’s a first time for everything,” he said flatly. 

Bond chuckled. “Indeed there is, Quartermaster."

###

He returned from the hardware store with two burlap bags full of sharp, blunt and heated instruments to try out on Q’s new accessory. “No diamond cutters unfortunately, but I did find these.” He dumped his haul on the table in front of where Q was now sitting in one of the armchairs, putting blue stains in the upholstery. As the money would be coming out of Silva’s bill, Bond saw no reason to remind Q about damage fees. Bond usually ignored them anyway. “And this, of course.” He handed Q the bottle of antifreeze he’d picked up. 

“Thank you, 007,” Q said as he took the bottle and unscrewed the cap.  

“I get a thank you, too?” 

“Don’t push it,” Q said. Then he tipped back the bottle and proceeded to guzzle most of its contents. Bond had to fight his gag reflex as he watched, and Q wasn’t much better off if his just-bit-into-a-sour-lemon face by the end of it was any indication. “Now that that’s out of the way,” he said gratefully, setting the bottle aside, “let’s see what you’ve brought me.” 

They proceeded to try every tool Bond had bought on Q’s collar, with little success. After half an hour, the collar was sporting an array of scratches and dents, but no real structural damage. “What the hell is this thing made of?” Bond ground out as he straddled Q with a large pair of fence cutters slipping precariously against the metal collar.  

“I think it’s a titanium alloy— _Careful!_ ” Q admonished as Bond nearly sheared the side of his throat.  

Bond threw down the fence cutters in frustration. “That’s the last of them,” he said.  

He and Q were nose-to-nose once more, and Bond was keen to get another taste of Q, perhaps to see if he had hallucinated the first time, but Q pressed three fingers to Bond’s lips and shook his head. “I just drank a litre of antifreeze; I don’t want to poison you by accident.” Grudgingly, Bond climbed out of Q’s chair and took the one opposite, casting one last glare at the assorted tools scattered about the room, as if it were their fault that they couldn’t cut through titanium. “I can get this off back at Q Branch,” Q said, tapping his collar, “but there’s a problem.” 

“What sort of problem?”

“Right now, between myself and Silva’s laptop, we’ve got the only copies of that hard drive. I can't upload the files to Q Branch without potentially giving this bloody collar access to my mainframe. I suspect even if I tried, I wouldn't be able to do it, since this collar seems to have been designed to block outgoing communications with interference. Silva will want to recover his data, but if he knows we’ve gone back to Headquarters, he’ll consign it as lost. If we don’t go back to Headquarters, however…” 

“He’ll come to us,” Bond finished. “You want to use yourself and that laptop as bait.”

“He’s too dangerous to be left alive, and he’s got a nasty habit of disappearing,” Q said. “Do you have any better ideas?” Bond thought about it, realised he didn’t, and grimaced. “Then we’ll need to go somewhere remote but familiar, where there won’t be any civilian casualties, but where we’ll have the home field advantage for once.” 

Home field advantage. Bond might have laughed if he wasn’t suddenly feeling so cold inside. He didn't believe in the kind of demons that walked the earth and possessed people, but he did believe in the kind that crouched in the old-but-not-forgotten places of a person's past, waiting for his return. 

“007?” Q asked, a hint of worry in his tone. 

“I know a place,” Bond said. 


	7. Before the Storm

As soon as Q had stopped haemorrhaging coolant, and Bond had purchased him a fresh set of clothes, the two of them were on the next flight back to London. Q wore a scarf to hide Silva’s collar, and a precisely timed pulse from the EMP allowed him to pass through the metal detector without issue. Air travel would always be a risky proposition for the Quartermaster, but lately, he hadn’t had much of a choice. 

They took a cab from Heathrow to an address that Bond provided. Neither of them notified HQ that they were back in the country. Bond was used to dropping off the radar, but having Q along complicated the matter. Before Q had left to join him in Stockholm, the Quartermaster had changed their mission to Dark Status, a set of parameters typically used for deep cover missions during which regular communication with HQ would be risky. With this mission, any electronic communication bore the risk of being intercepted by Silva. Therefore, HQ wouldn’t be expecting an update for another twelve hours. But if Q or Bond did not check in with HQ at that time, M could and would have Q’s satellite signal traced and send a team to retrieve them. That gave them twelve hours to complete the mission. 

The cab pulled up in front of an old garage south of the river. Bond paid the cabbie and told him to drive off. “Please tell me this isn’t the place you had in mind,” Q said, looking the decaying building over disparagingly.

“We’re changing vehicles,” Bond replied as he unlocked and threw open the garage door to reveal the classic, silver Aston Martin inside, just as he had left it. The mere sight of the old automobile brought a rare, warm smile to Bond’s face. 

“What a beautiful machine,” Q said, running his fingers fondly across the bonnet as he admired the vehicle. 

Bond quirked an eyebrow. “Should I be jealous?”

Q feigned a scandalised expression. “I’m hurt you think me so shallow, 007. I go for more than just looks.” He slid into the passenger’s seat as Bond took the driver’s seat, and despite his reassurances, the A.I. continued to look a little bit flustered as he examined the car’s interior and its custom modifications. “This is my predecessor’s work,” he said quietly. Then he turned a reproachful gaze upon Bond. “You’re not supposed to have this.”

“Are you going to report me, Quartermaster?”

“I suppose we can chalk it up as compensation for selling all of your other worldly belongings,” Q said thoughtfully. “I never got to properly meet the old Quartermaster, but he poured so much of himself into creating me that I feel as though he were an old friend.”

Bond hadn’t thought about that before. The former M may not have meant much to Q personally, but the former Quartermaster certainly would have. Silva had taken the closest thing Bond had had to a mother, and the closest thing Q had had to a father. Bond was rather disgusted with himself for ever placing the blame on Q. He turned the key in the ignition and fired up the engine with a satisfying growl. “Let’s go pay Silva back in kind for what he took.”

“Where are we going?” Q asked as Bond peeled out of the garage and made for the M40. 

“Back in time.” 

“Last I checked, this was an Aston Martin, not a DeLorean,” Q said after it became clear that Bond wasn’t about to elucidate further. “So I’m going to assume you’re being poetically cryptic. Care to tell me where we’re really going?” 

“Skyfall,” Bond said, careful to keep his voice neutral, although it was difficult, even for just those two syllables. Especially for those two syllables.  

“Oh.” Q fell uncharacteristically silent, but Bond was hardly surprised. Q had read his file, and all over it were _Fight Club_ -esque warnings along the lines of: _Don’t Talk About Skyfall_. What did surprise Bond was that after a moment, Q spoke up again. “Will you be able to keep a clear head?”  

“My mind is on the mission, Q,” Bond replied, uncertain whether to be irritated that Q might have expected anything less from him, or grateful that Q was handling this latest development with the same cool professionalism with which he approached everything else. _Well, almost everything else_ , Bond thought with the barest hint of a smile. “Can you get Silva to follow us?” 

“I’m more concerned about giving us the head start we need,” Q replied. “If he were smart, which he is, he would have put a GPS tracking chip in this collar. In case he didn’t, in an hour I’ll begin laying down a trail of digital breadcrumbs for him to follow. Hopefully, either way he’ll want to take some time to regroup and gather his resources to hand before he comes after us. We’ll just have to be prepared for whatever he has to throw at us,” Q concluded grimly. 

“We will be. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us. Plenty of time to out-plan our adversary,” Bond said reassuringly. Whether he was reassuring himself or Q, he didn’t care to dwell.  

### 

It was, in truth, a _very_ long drive. Upwards of eight hours on the road was enough time to come up with about a dozen contingency plans before Bond began to feel a growing urge to smash his gorgeous car into a tree. Q must have noticed, because after they had stopped to fill up on petrol, the conversation steered toward lighter, more mindless topics in order to pass the time. Bond normally would have been content to pass the hours on the road in silence, but Q seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice almost as much as Bond did. Fleetingly, Bond hoped it wouldn’t be too distracting to have that silky voice murmuring in his ear on future missions, until he remembered that there was a good chance there wouldn’t be any future missions for him after today, and he decided to enjoy it while he could. 

“It’s half empty if you’re emptying it, and half full if you’re filling it,” Q was saying. “I don’t understand the debate. The correct answer depends entirely on context.” 

“It seems to me a glass of good Scotch is always half empty,” Bond said mournfully. 

“That’s because you drink too much, 007.”

Q insisted on driving for a few hours after their next petrol stop so Bond could catch some sleep as they drove through the night. Bond couldn't stay asleep for very long, however, and driving put his mind more at ease than his nightmares did. When he awoke, breathing hard, Q surrendered the wheel to him once more with little persuasion. 

As they crossed the border into Scotland, Q regaled Bond with stories from his beta testing with 009. “The first time we met, like you, he didn’t even know who I was. But unlike you, he had just wandered into Q Branch for tech support. His first words to me were ‘Are you good with computers?’” Q chuckled quietly as Bond smiled, trying not to laugh at his fellow 00’s expense.  

“What did you say?” Bond asked.  

“I wish I had come up with something clever, but I’m afraid I was stunned into silence. After all, I hadn’t interacted with very many people by that point. Finally, I just said ‘I’m very good with computers, but fixing yours is a little below my pay grade’, and sent him to one of my subordinates. I think she filled him in.” Bond snorted, finding it increasingly difficult to hold back his laughter. “That wasn’t the worst part, though,” Q said, looking over at Bond with a conspiratorial smile. “I had this glitch, where I didn’t have the proper programming to accommodate beta testing parameters. So when M registered 009 as my beta tester, my systems scrambled the information and decided that the most logical explanation for it was that I had been assigned to oversee 009’s next active mission, which wasn’t due to take place for another week. So I moved the mission forward, gave 009 his kit, and convinced him he needed to be on the next flight to Uganda. It was only when he checked in from Kampala that M even realised he was gone, and ordered him to come straight back.” 

As Q dissolved into a fit of giggles, Bond lost the last of his composure. Loud, honest laughter racked his chest, and he struggled to draw breath. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed so hard. When he finally managed to collect himself again, Q was watching him with that etherial smile of his. “You should laugh more, 007.”

Bond sobered a little at that. “Usually this job isn’t very funny,” he said. “Why don’t you ever call me by my name? Even Mallory uses my surname when he's feeling particularly warm and fuzzy.”

Q frowned. “I’m programmed to call everyone by their appropriate codenames. But if you’d like me to use your real name in non-professional settings, I could alter the code.” 

“Alright,” Bond said quietly. 

Q nodded. “Give me just a moment.” His gaze grew briefly distant, but he soon met Bond’s eyes again and smiled. “Better, James?”

It was heady hearing his real name on Q’s lips, and Bond found himself unconsciously returning Q’s smile. But as he returned his gaze to the long, empty road ahead, the thought surfaced that it was a little piece of code that had turned him from ‘007’ to ‘James’ in Q’s mind, not any sort of organic process. Did that change mean as much to Q as it did to him? Did it mean anything to Q at all? For that matter, what, if anything, had the kiss they’d shared meant to Q? A small part of Bond’s brain reminded him that very few kisses in his life had meant anything to him, and that he’d be a hypocrite if he faulted Q for indulging in a little bit of meaningless fun. And Q was experiencing everything for the first time; he ought to be able to experiment freely. But that kiss had been one of the few that had meant something to Bond, and although he was’t yet sure exactly _what_ it had meant, he knew he didn’t much fancy the idea of being Q’s experiment. 

“I can practically hear the gears turning,” Q said. “What are you brooding about, then?”

Bond let out an annoyed huff. “Haven't got any gears, Q. And I don’t brood.” 

Q returned a skeptical look. “You let us declare you legally dead just so you could get some good brooding done.” 

“Q,” Bond said in a warning tone, hoping the A.I. would take the hint and drop the subject. Bond didn’t even know how to articulate his thoughts, let alone express them to Q. Nor had he any desire to do so at the moment. The whole notion was ridiculous, that somewhere along the line he had developed feelings for MI6’s resident artificial intelligence system. He almost felt like laughing again. He was long overdue for a psychotic break. Perhaps this was it.

“You promised me your mind was on the mission,” Q said gently. “If it’s not, and there’s anything I can do about it…”

“What do you want from me, Q?” Bond snapped, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. 

“I…I’m sorry?” Q said, clearly confused but trying hard to grasp the thread of Bond’s logic. “I want you focused,” he tried, searching Bond’s face for any hint of what Bond was driving at.  

Bond decided he would spell it out for Q. “Then why did you let me kiss you?” he growled. “Was that a part of your bloody Turing test, too? Playing at being human? Because if that’s all it was then you can find someone else to play with.”

Q’s eyes narrowed as he pinned Bond with a frankly terrifying glare. “Pull over,” he said calmly.

“We don't have time,” Bond gritted. 

“We do have time, and this is important,” Q said, still without raising his voice in the slightest. “Now pull over. That's an order.” With a jerk of the wheel, Bond pulled the car over onto the side of the empty road and brought it to a lurching halt. He met Q’s gaze in unflinching defiance. “Get out,” Q said, not waiting to see if Bond followed his next order before he stepped out of the car himself. Grudgingly, Bond unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. He barely had time to slam the door shut behind him before Q shoved him up against it in a shocking display of strength that set Bond’s adrenaline raging.

“I realise a lot of people in this world really are out to get you, 007, but I am not one of them,” Q said, his voice still lethally calm. “In fact, it is my _literal purpose in life_ to keep you and the other 00s safe and to look out for your best interests. I would _never_ toy with you. I thought I made myself clear when I let you kiss me, but apparently not. I actually like you, James. An inordinate amount. You insufferable prick. So I suggest you take that bloody chip off your shoulder,” Q finished with a low growl, having cast aside his cool collectedness to make a more visceral point.   

Bond swallowed hard. His veins still burned with ice-fire adrenaline that had no outlet, not even anger anymore, and Q had pressed in a little too close to be strictly professional.“Understood, Q,” he managed. “Sorry for being an insufferable prick.” 

Q’s gaze softened and a slight smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “It’s alright. I know you can’t help it most of the time. Sometimes, it’s even a little bit charming.” 

“Charming enough for another kiss?” Bond asked, arching slightly beneath Q. 

Q leaned in a little more, but stopped just short of Bond’s lips and smirked. “ _Now_ we don’t have time.”

It was Bond’s turn to glare. “I thought you said you wouldn’t toy with me.” 

“I haven’t made any promises I don’t intend to keep,” Q replied, the words themselves laced with promise. “But right now, we’ve got a terrorist to eliminate.”  

With that, Q backed off and walked back around to the passenger’s side of the car. Reluctantly, Bond reopened his door and joined Q inside the car. He fired up the engine and pulled out once more onto the road that wound up through the green, rocky valley that ended in a place where the fog rolled down over the hills and across the moors, and the sky seemed to fall to earth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to have them get to Skyfall in this chapter, but the two of them just had to have it out. The insufferable pricks.


	8. Ozymandias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter, yay! I hope I've managed to keep the Skyfall finale fresh and interesting. There will be just one more chapter after this.

“So this is where you grew up,” said Q, gazing out the window as the car made its way down the long drive toward the house. The once-proud stag statue still stood guard atop the moss-splotched stone gate behind them, looking out across the moors. The distant foothills crept in and out of view through the fog, which settled over the lake and turned the water into a cold, silver sheet. Other than the old house and the small chapel behind it, there was no sign of human life as far as the eye could see.  

Bond made a noncommittal sound, doing his best to keep his mind on the task at hand, and the past where it belonged. He had been more than happy to leave the place to rot.  

“I haven’t seen much of the world in person, but this seems like an awfully lonely corner of it,” Q said quietly. Skyfall had always brought out a certain amount of melancholy in those who visited, even before it had become a tomb for the memory of Bond’s dead parents. If even Q could feel it, the place was bleak indeed. Still, Bond couldn’t help but feel relieved that it wasn’t just him who found Skyfall too silent and empty. 

“That’s why I never came back,” Bond muttered as he pulled up in front of the house. The unadorned stone structure, while relatively modest for the abode of one of Britain’s older landowning families, was large enough to loom, the peaked roof and narrow windows adding to the sinister and forbidding feel of the façade.  

“ _Orbis non sufficit_ ,” Q read the Latin inscription carved above the doorway. “The world is not enough,” he translated. 

“Family motto,” said Bond, once he had locked up the car and joined Q in front of the doorway. The A.I. had Silva’s hard drive carefully tucked away in a black messenger bag slung over his shoulder, having extracted it from the laptop on the drive up and thrown the wretched machine into the nearest lake with unconcealed pleasure. 

“Sounds a bit villainous, doesn’t it?” Q mused. “Certainly something Silva would take to heart, if he hasn’t already.”

“Well, he and I have a lot in common,” Bond said. 

Q gave him a stern look. “No, you don’t.”

Bond merely shrugged. “Come on, Q. I’ll give you the tour.” 

The inside of the ancient house only added to the feeling that the place was haunted by its old memories. Dusty, white sheets were draped over what spare furniture remained, and hung from the dead chandeliers like spectres. Contrary to the overwhelming impression of years of vacancy, however, Bond learnt that the house was not empty when he rounded a corner and came eye-to-eye with the twin barrels of a shotgun.  

Bond indicated with a subtle hand gesture for Q to stand down when he heard the snap on Q’s holster pop. “James. James Bond,” Kincade said, slowly lowering the gun and looking as though he’d seen a ghost himself. He must have thought Bond dead along with the rest of the world.  

“Good God. Are you still alive?” Bond said by way of greeting, thinking that perhaps coming back to Skyfall wouldn’t be all bad, after all. 

“It’s nice to see you, too,” Kincade replied gruffly. He had never had much patience for Bond giving him attitude, of which Bond had dished out a considerable amount in his boyhood.

“Q, this is Kincade,” Bond said, unable to keep the smile from his face. “Gamekeeper here since I was a boy.”

“Pleased to meet you, Hugh,” said Kincade.  

Q still eyed the old gamekeeper warily, but he stepped forward and shook the man’s offered hand. “Mr Kincade,” he said.  

“You’re a tad late,” Kincade addressed Bond again. “They sold the place when they thought you were dead. It seems they were wrong.” The old Scotsman was nearly as emotionally guarded as Bond, but he let slip a small smile on those last words. “What are you doing here?” 

“Some men are coming to kill us,” Bond answered him frankly. Well, they would probably kill Bond, at least. He had no idea what they would do to Q. “We’re going to kill them first.”

Kincade considered that for a moment. Finally, he said, “Then we’d better get ready.”

Bond had spent all of his ammo for his Walther hunting Silva through the sewers of Stockholm, and Q had only brought one spare clip for his own Smith and Wesson. The gun room being empty save for Bond’s father’s hunting rifle was a disappointing setback, but Kincade, Bond and Q were nothing if not crafty. Kincade sawed off the barrels of his shotgun and placed large standing mirrors at the junctions of blind corners. Q replaced the lightbulbs in the chandeliers with explosive bundles of screws, nails and broken glass. Bond pulled up a few of the old floorboards at each entrance to the house and rigged up pressure-triggered explosives to conceal beneath them. The three of them boarded up all of the windows.

They spent some time in the late afternoon out on the moor at the makeshift shooting range Kincade had constructed. Neither Bond nor Q needed the target practice (Q was equipped with highly advanced targeting software that automatically made him the best shot in MI6, knocking an outraged 006 down to number two, where he complained vociferously to anyone who had the misfortune of being stuck in a room with him about how Q had cheated), but it was a welcome excuse to get out of the house. The old building was feeling increasingly like a death trap thanks to their efforts. Q had the whole area under satellite surveillance at a ten-mile radius, so they felt reasonably comfortable blowing off some steam whilst they awaited their killers. 

“So who is it we’re supposed to be fighting?” Kincade asked. 

“No ‘we’ in it, Kincade,” Bond said. “This isn’t your fight.” 

“Try and stop me, you jumped-up little shit,” Kincade answered. Bond sighed. The old man was as stubborn as a tree stump when he set his mind to something, and Bond knew he couldn’t talk him out of it. Bond would just have to fight harder to protect him when the time came. “Now, remember what I taught you,” Kincade said as Bond cocked his gun. “Don’t let it pull to the left.” 

From the corner of his eye, Bond noted the amused expression on Q’s face where he stood on the other side of Bond from Kincade. “I’ll do my best,” Bond muttered. He proceeded to swiftly line up his father’s rifle with the first teacup on the log, and blast it and then its twin into oblivion. After he’d expelled the shells, Kincade favoured him with a curious look.  

“What did you say you did for a living?” Bond had too much respect for the man to lie to him, so he remained silent. Kincade got the idea. With a helpless shrug, he turned to Q. “I could fetch some more teacups if you like, but it’ll just be a waste of expensive china if you can shoot anything like that.”

“Thank you, Mr Kincade, but I ought to save my ammunition for the live targets,” Q said. He politely neglected to mention that between him and Bond, he was the better marksman. Bond wondered absently if in another decade or so, machines like Q would put field agents like Bond out of a job. He supposed it wouldn’t matter much to him, as by then he’d either be dead or retired. Most likely the former. 

Kincade gave another expansive shrug and began making his way back to the house, muttering about how someone might have mentioned something _before_ he’d set up the range.   

###

_“How’s the signal, 007?”_ Q’s voice murmured in his ear as Bond walked around the house double-checking their preparations, and testing that his earpiece was still functioning properly. 

He was about to answer when he heard Kincade’s voice in the background over his earpiece. _“Hugh. I brought you some things. The nights get cold here.”_

Bond supposed the suit he’d bought Q wasn’t really intended for cold weather, but Bond doubted his Quartermaster noticed the cold with that generator running hot inside him. _“Thank you, Mr Kincade. It’s a beautiful old house,”_ he heard Q say. Bond nearly laughed at that. He could tell Q disliked being stuck in such primitive surroundings, without access to all of his clean, shiny tech. 

_“She is,”_ Kincade said fondly. _“And like all great, old things, she still has her secrets. Let me show you this.”_  

Bond’s breath snagged on its way up his throat when he realised exactly which room Q and Kincade were in. _“A priest’s hole,”_ Q said.   

 _“From Reformation times,”_ Kincade affirmed. _“The tunnel leads under the moor. If you get in danger, this is the place to come. The night I told him his parents had died, he hid in here for two days. When he did come out…he wasn’t a boy anymore.”_  

Bond heard Kincade’s footsteps fade away soon after that. Then Q’s voice again, quieter than it had been. _“James?”_

“Signal’s fine, Q,” Bond answered, and got on with his perimeter check. 

It wasn’t much longer before Q’s satellite surveillance picked up three trucks heading inbound from the south out on the main road. Bond left the house to take up his position out in the Aston Martin. The growl of the heavy trucks’ engines traveled far across the silent moor as they approached. Bond heard the moment they stopped up by the gate.  

 _“I’ve got thirteen men armed with assault rifles spread out in single file, doing a sweep toward the house,”_ Q reported over Bond’s earpiece. It was almost like Q was back in Q Branch, directing one of Bond’s away missions. But Bond was much closer to home than usual, and Q was much farther away from it. _“They should be in your sights in fifty seconds.”_  

“Copy that, Q,” Bond acknowledged. He wouldn’t mind if the bad guys picked up the pace a little. His position crouched down between the front seats of the car wasn’t the most comfortable.  

What felt like rather more than fifty seconds later, Bond heard the crunch of combat boots on gravel as the men passed in front of him. _“They’re preparing to breach the house.”_ Because Bond was a professional, he managed to suppress the sigh of ‘ _finally’_ that threatened to escape him. Instead, he risked a quick look through the windshield to survey the field, taking note of the men’s positions. Then he ducked back down, engaged the car’s forward turret guns, and opened fire.   

The men at the front of the house dropped immediately as the jet of high-calibre bullets tore through their legs. The group that had moved around the side of the house raised their weapons and converged on the car, outside the line of fire. As they let loose their own jets of bullets, Bond had to duck back down behind the dashboard. Some of the men continued on to enter the house through the front door, which they had blown off its hinges with a timed detonation. Bond grinned when he heard two shotgun blasts, signalling that Kincade had taken out the first few men through the door with his mirror trick. Another explosion a few seconds later meant that some unlucky sod had trodden on the wrong floorboard. The rapid series of sharper, shrapnel-filled explosions Bond heard over his earpiece was Q switching on the lights. 

Finally, Bond made his move, flinging the car door open and using it for cover as he dropped the two remaining hostiles outside the house with efficient shots from his rifle. He swapped his gun for one of theirs, and followed the sound of gunshots through the house, managing to quickly take out another couple of Silva’s men as they tried to corner Kincade. More gunshots from the back of the house had the two men rushing toward their source. It sounded like Q was engaged in a firefight. 

Bond arrived first, just in time to see Q holster his gun, break cover and rush his assailant, all in the second or two that it took the other man to reload. By the time he did, Q’s hand was around his throat, white sparks jumping between the A.I.’s fingertips as the man convulsed violently for a moment in his grip, and then fell still. Q let the body drop to the ground, the smell of burnt hair and flesh already beginning to permeate the air.  

“Was that necessary?” Bond asked from the doorway.  

Q looked up at him as if just noticing his presence. “I couldn’t get a good shot,” he explained.  

“Well, that was the last of them.” It was only then that Bond noticed Q was pressing a hand to his side, just above his hip. “Are you hurt?” Bond asked, moving to Q’s side.  

“Just a graze,” Q said, reluctantly allowing Bond to coax his hand away from the wound so the agent could get a better look at it. Q’s fingers were coated blue. There was a deep, leaking gash in Q’s side, and the tip of a smooth, black ridge was visible in just about the right place to be the top of Q’s ilium. 

“That’s not just a graze, Q,” Bond said hollowly. If Q were human, he’d be down for the count. “Why didn’t you tell me you were cornered?” 

Q pulled the thick, woollen scarf Kincade had given him earlier and wrapped it tightly around himself twice before tying it off over the wound. “Kincade needed you more,” Q said. When he looked back toward the doorway, Bond’s gaze followed his, and found Kincade standing there, staring at Q with wide eyes. 

“You’re…” Kincade began, but trailed off.  

Q put on his most charming ‘dealing with humans’ smile and said, “I’m an android. Advanced model, not yet on the market. Do you have a problem with that, Mr Kincade?” 

Kincade seemed to shake off his shock, and offered one of his shrugs that he used to express the ineffable. “I suppose if you bleed when you’re cut, you’re human enough for me.” 

Q nodded curtly, and bent down to pull the ski mask from the dead man’s face. It wasn’t Silva’s face beneath. “If that was the last of them, then he’s not here,” Q said.  

Bond heard the faint chop of helicopter blades and the thrumming bass of loud music in the distance just as Q straightened abruptly. “ _Shit_ ,” Q hissed. “We’ve got a helicopter approaching from the south. It looks military.”

The three of them moved to the southern window, where they could clearly see a large helicopter approaching over the lake, blasting music from speakers mounted to the exterior. “Always got to make an entrance,” Bond grumbled. “You two, go to the chapel. Use the tunnel. Now.” 

Q didn’t hesitate to take Bond’s orders. With Silva’s collar still around his neck, he’d be useless if he got within range of the transmitter. As Q and Kincade fled the room, Bond smashed out the window with the butt of his rifle and fired at the helicopter, causing it to veer sideways in order for a gunman inside to return fire. The chopper circled the house in the darkening sky, riddling it with bullets as Bond dashed from room to room, looking for another opportunity to bring it down. He needn’t have bothered. It landed after its first pass around.  

Silva led a second team of heavily armed men away from the helicopter and toward the house, lobbing fire bombs in through the windows to cover their approach. He heard Silva yelling to his men over the chop of the helicopter blades. “Don’t you dare touch the A.I.! He’s mine!” Bond stalked the men and the helicopter around the house from the inside, looking for a shot. Suddenly, Silva’s voice was at the nearest window. “Can your friend come out and say hello?” he called. Bond answered him with a burst of gunfire. Silva replied with another fire bomb through the broken window. 

The house was burning. Bond figured he might as well accelerate the process. Let the place go out with a bang. He hauled two propane tanks out of the pantry as the helicopter blew his car to bits. The fuckers would pay dearly for that. Only Bond got to blow up his cars. He twined the tanks together with a long fuse and lit it. Then he made for the tunnel. When he reached the priest’s hole, he turned and looked back, perhaps to say his farewell, but what came out instead was, “I always hated this place.” Giving no more thought to the matter, he turned his back on the house and began sprinting down the tunnel. 

He felt the explosion shake the earth when he was halfway through. The fireball was hot on his heels for the last few metres until he was able to dive into an offshoot from the main tunnel just in front of the outlet. The fire raged past him and extinguished itself in the night. He hoped Silva burned ten times hotter than cyanide as he died in agony, but the vermin had proven infuriatingly difficult to kill thus far. Bond didn't put much stock in his hopes.  

As he exited the tunnel onto the moor, Bond took a brief moment to take in the sight of the old house burning. The fire cast a hellish, orange glow over the darkened land. The ninth circle of Hell was for traitors, he recalled. The Devil was at the centre, encased in ice. Ice crunched beneath Bond’s feet as he turned and ran for the chapel. 

Silva and one of his gunmen caught him out in the middle of a frozen pond. “I’ll give him a goodbye kiss for you,” Silva said, looking toward the chapel. 

Silva was too far away, Bond couldn’t get to him. He certainly couldn’t beat him to the chapel. But he could take the gunman down with him. Having made his calculations, he lunged for the other man’s gun, firing down through the ice in a circle around them. They both went through. 

The cold was shocking enough to squeeze the breath out of Bond’s lungs, spiking into his core and making it feel as though his heart could stop at any moment, frozen. Bond struggled with the other man as the man’s heavy gear dragged both of them down, further into the dark. It was moments like these that truly tested Bond’s aptitude for the 00 Programme, not formal evaluations in closed rooms. He felt the panic creeping into his bones like the cold, but he shut it out, focusing on choking the air out of his opponent before he would consider his own air supply. The faster he ended this fight, the faster he could get back to the surface. And he ended it fast, taking a visceral sort of pleasure in watching the bubbles burst from the other man’s mouth before he went limp. 

The problem was, they had drifted as they’d struggled. He had lost track of the hole in the ice, and he was running out of air. A spike of panic slipped past his guard then, as he pounded against the underside of the ice. Silva was up there, heading right for Q and Kincade, and if Bond drowned here under the ice, he wouldn’t be able to protect them. It was that thought – an objective – that cleared his mind once more. He dove for the dead man’s flare gun, thanking modern science that guns could fire underwater these days. Like a shooting star, the flare shot through the water, lighting up the ice above.  

It was enough. The ice broke apart and melted above him, and Bond heaved himself out of the water, gulping down greedy lungfuls of air, despite the needles of pain it sent through his chest. As soon as the dark dizziness subsided from behind his eyes, he took off at a run toward the chapel, his frozen muscles screaming at him the entire way. His earpiece crackled in his ear, shorted out by the water. There was no way to know what he was running toward, now. He may already be too late. 

He ran right past his parents’ graves and up the stairs to the chapel, throwing the doors open with a deep, resounding _bang_. The _whizz-thud_ of a bullet embedding itself in the wall just beside his head stopped him in his tracks. Silva stood in the centre of the aisle, pistol raised and aimed at Bond. Kincade stood in the doorway at the other end of the chapel, hands raised, kept at bay by Silva’s pistol the same as Bond.

“Don’t,” Silva warned him, before turning his attention to Q, who was slumped against one of the pews a few rows away. Q’s hand was clutched to his side again, the scarf soaked through with blue. “You have something of mine,” Silva told Q, voice dripping with a strange mixture of malice and admiration. “Return it to me, and I might let one of these men live.” 

Eyes locked with Silva’s, Q reached slowly into his messenger bag, and withdrew the hard drive. He held it up for Silva to see, and then crushed it in his hand, metal twisting and crunching easily between his fingers. Q smiled serenely. “What on earth made you think you could threaten me with their lives?” he said. “I don’t care about two little humans. _I_ have all the leverage here, Mr Silva. I have the only copy of your data now, all of your operations, your entire life. And I’m not going to give it back.”

At first Bond thought Silva had begun to shake with rage, but then he started to laugh. It was a horrible laugh, full of the same lilting hysteria Q’s laughter had held after Silva had made him kill M. “In that case,” he said, “I’ll just have to tear you apart until I find your data drives.” He pressed the same button on his watch as he had in the hotel room in Stockholm, activating the metal collar around Q’s neck, and just like he had then, Q cried out in anguish and slid gracelessly to the floor, curling into a tight ball and trembling violently. His cries became half-formed words as Silva advanced toward him, but they were unintelligible.

Silva loomed over him, still laughing. “What are you saying, my pet? Are you trying to beg?” He knelt down in front of Q, hand to his ear. “Tell me. I want to know. What is it you’re trying to say?” 

“I said…” Q groaned, coherent now, though it clearly cost him a lot of energy. Silva leaned closer to hear him properly. Bond saw his chance. Silva had lost his focus, no longer keeping an eye on Bond, who he thought to be unarmed. “...Good luck with that,” Q bit out, managing a few chuckles of his own. In the time it took a snake to strike, Bond’s throwing knife embedded itself in Silva’s back.  

Silva snarled like an animal, whirling around to face Bond. He took a few faltering steps forward, and then fell to his knees, his eyes full of hatred and something like betrayal as he looked up at Bond. “Last rat standing,” Bond muttered as the life drained from Silva’s face, and he fell forward at Bond’s feet. Bond stomped on Silva’s wrist, smashing the watch between his heel and the hard flagstones. He heard Q release a long, shuddering sigh of relief. 

Q seemed perfectly content to stay sprawled on the floor, but Bond moved to cradle his head in his lap, hoping it was it was more comfortable. “007,” Q said weakly. “What took you so long?”

“Well, I got into some deep water,” Bond answered lightly, helping Q keep pressure on his wound. 

Q coughed, and it sounded wet. “You know…even if this body is…unsalvageable, I'll see you back at HQ. And I'll build a new one. It would take awhile, but…I’ve come to see the merits of having one.” 

“I’ve grown rather fond of this one, Q,” Bond said, trying to sound nonchalant as Kincade looked on grimly. The gamekeeper had seen enough things die to recognise the signs. As had Bond. 

“The cavalry’s coming,” Q said, eyes distant in that way they were when he was looking at things Bond couldn’t see. “I suppose this all got a little out of hand, didn’t it, James?” He coughed again, and this time when he stopped his lips were tinged blue. “I did get one thing right, though.” His eyes met Bond’s for a suspended moment before slipping closed.


	9. Alpha and Omega

The retrieval team Mallory sent arrived about ten minutes after Q’s body had gone offline. Q must have been in contact with them before they'd left, because they brought with them in the helicopter a large crate insulated with liquid nitrogen, which they put Q’s body in for transport. Bond couldn’t shake the thought that it looked like a coffin. It really wasn’t fair, he thought on the ride back to London, sitting across from Q’s gently steaming crate. He knew Q wasn’t dead. If his earpiece hadn’t shorted, he could have probably spent the ride in the helicopter chatting with the A.I. like nothing was amiss. Q’s servers were where his life was housed, his body little more than a puppet for him to manipulate from afar. But having that body expire in his arms still impacted Bond like a fist to the gut. Bond supposed that was rather the point of having a human interface – so humans could fool themselves into thinking they were interacting with another human.  

They did, in fact, make it back to HQ and rush Q’s body to Q Branch in time for Q and his engineers to salvage it. But some fundamental pieces inside him had begun to melt before they’d got him on ice, and the repairs would take nearly a week. In the meantime, the A.I. ran Q Branch without his human interface, communicating with his subordinates via the overhead speakers and chat clients on their computers, as he had been doing since he had left to meet Bond in Stockholm. Still, over an extended period, those forms of interaction began to wear on the nerves of some Q-Branchers, a disproportionate amount of whom were well versed in science fiction, and thus inherently wary of clever, omniscient supercomputers. Some of them had even started calling Q "HAL" in jest. (Of course, Q was pleased as punch at the nickname. He liked projecting omniscience within Q Branch, whether or not he really had it.)

Even Bond found visiting Q Branch a little unnerving during that week. He could talk to Q, but of course neither of them could acknowledge the fragile thing that had bloomed between them over the past few weeks. Bond still wasn’t entirely sure what that thing was, but he knew it felt further and further out of reach each day he couldn’t touch Q, or see his face. Bond knew that if they could have anything at all together, it would depend on him understanding and accepting Q for what he was, as Q already seemed to have done for Bond. But if Q had been an enigma before, he was even more so without body language and facial expressions. The very fundamentals of the A.I.’s existence were difficult concepts for Bond to wrap his head around. But he only made the mistake of going down to R&D to check on the progress of Q’s bodily repairs once. He saw Q’s body opened up and spread out on that cold steel table, bits and pieces of his inner workings strewn about the room, robotic arms suspended from the ceiling working over him with mechanical precision, and he had to look away. He had been wrong before. That collection of hardware wasn’t what he’d grown fond of. _Q_ was. Whatever that entailed. 

“Her funeral is today,” Bond said that day outside of the repairs chamber. They had waited to hold a formal funeral until the mess with Silva had been sorted out, and there was time to mourn her properly.

“I was advised not to attend the day after…the day after she died,” Q’s voice answered softly over the speakers. “Now, at least I’ve got a pretty good excuse not to be there. After I’m back on two legs, I’ll go pay my respects in private. She was an incredible woman.” 

Bond nodded his agreement. He meant to say “I miss her,” but what came out instead was “I miss you.” 

Q could have responded to that in a number of entirely appropriate ways, the top of the list being something along the lines of “I’m here talking to you right now you pea-brained ape.” But he said simply, “I know.”

After a moment of heavy silence, Bond heard a light tapping on the glass wall of the chamber. He looked up to see one of the robotic arms giving him a little wave with its pincers. The small action brought a surprised smile to Bond’s face, and he returned the wave. “Thanks, Q,” he said.  

“I’ll be off this table soon, James,” said Q.  

### 

After the funeral, Bond couldn’t bring himself to go back to Q Branch. Instead, he found himself heading in the opposite direction, up to the roof. It was a clear day, and there was a spectacular view of London from up there, nestled among the rooftops.  

“Wow. I didn’t even know you could come up here,” said his old partner from Istanbul, having appeared silently behind him. She was excellent at the stealth part of the job, but he still thought her aim could use some work.  

“Hate to waste a view,” he said. “I thought you were going back out on active service.”

“I declined,” she said. “You said it yourself, fieldwork’s not for everyone.” 

Bond hoped it wasn’t too chauvinistic of him that he took great relief in her decision not to go back out there in the field. He knew plenty of excellent female field agents, after all, of which she was one. But she had such a bright spirit, like very few others in their line of work did, and he had seen it grow just a little dimmer after she thought she’d killed him.He hoped never to see that happen again. There was plenty of vital work she could do at HQ. Honestly, they could use more people like her to cut through all the bureaucratic bullshit. “If it helps, I feel a lot safer,” he said. 

She gave him a look that was distinctly unimpressed. “You left before they read her will,” she said. “She left you this.” She held out a little cardboard box, inside which was nestled that godawful bulldog. “Maybe it was her way of telling you to take a desk job.” 

Bond couldn’t help but smile down at the ruddy thing. “Just the opposite,” he said. “Thank you.” 

“Have you and Q managed to patch things up, after running this mission together?” she asked hesitantly. Bond hadn’t exactly kept his opinion of Q a closely guarded secret in the days after M’s death. 

“You mean do I still blame him? No,” Bond answered honestly. “Silva killed M. I’d say the Quartermaster and I are on good terms, now.” Bond left it at that. Wherever things might go between them, they’d have to keep it under wraps. If word got around that he’d taken up with their resident A.I., the strange looks he’d receive would be the least of his problems. Psych would have a field day. Mallory would have a fit and a half, and almost certainly fire him. Possibly with actual fire somehow involved. It wasn’t unheard of, people getting a little too attached to their androids, but it wasn’t the sane people that did. Even though Q was so much more than just a collection of parts made to look human, there was no way anyone else looking at their situation would read it any other way than that Q had fooled him, or he’d fooled Q. They couldn’t possibly be equals, because they weren’t the same. Not to mention the potential for massive conflicts of interest, what with Q being an integral part of MI6 itself. Not that Q would put anything before his job, and neither would Bond, not anymore. But this wasn’t something they could simply file a form with HR about and then carry on with their business. No, they would have to keep it a secret. Luckily, he and Q were good at keeping secrets. 

“That's good to hear,” the other agent said. “Q has certainly shaken things up around here. But I think, for the most part, the changes will be for the better.” 

“I hope so,” said Bond. It was time to change the topic of conversation. “You know, we’ve never formally been introduced.”

“Well, my names Eve. Eve Moneypenny,” she said, offering him a pristinely manicured hand. 

He enfolded her hand in his, allowing himself a moment to appreciate the simple human contact, a warm anomaly compared to the prodding fingers of the doctors in Medical, and his usual careful solitude. “I look forward to our time together, Miss Moneypenny,” he said.  

“Me too,” she replied with that killer smile of hers. “I'm sure we’ll have one or two close shaves.” She winked, and then walked off, no doubt to do something important whilst he continued contemplating the view.  

###

The next day, Bond was heading up from the Q Branch firing range (it was much better equipped and designed than the open practice range, and quieter because only 00s and Q Branch staff had access to it), when he was met with a round of enthusiastic applause as soon as he stepped through the door into the main control room. He had a moment of bewilderment where the thought crossed his mind that he really hadn't been shooting _that_ well, before he saw that the door to the R &D chambers was also open, and Q was standing in it, looking just the same as he ever had, and just as bewildered as Bond. Quietly, Bond slipped into the room. 

When the room finally quieted down, Q had gone from confused to flustered. “Yes, yes, I'm back on my feet, thank you all for…whatever that was. But you're acting as though I'm back from the dead. That's really more 007’s thing.” He shot Bond a small smile, letting him know that his presence hadn't gone unnoticed.

“It's just good to see your face again, sir,” one of Q’s chief assistants, a tall, smartly dressed South Asian man said. Bond thought his name might be Aditya.

“Well, I suppose it's good to see all of you again as well,” Q said hesitantly. “Even though, again, I have been here the whole time.” He crossed the room and returned to his workstation. His next words were: “We've got 002 arriving in Alexandria in half an hour. How’s the location canvassing going?” 

It was surprisingly easy for Bond to settle back into his previous routine of watching Q work. It was reassuring seeing Q’s complete command of the controllable variables of 002’s mission. No detail escaped him, he answered questions as swiftly as 002 could snap them at him, he seemed to have a map of the entire city laid out in his mind, and was still able to run complex analyses of multiple data streams as his staff gathered them. He stayed on the comms with 002 until the agent reached one of their safe houses in the city, all of the necessary intel gathered, and ready to slip into his cover of an aspiring young bomb maker looking to connect with an underground terrorist cell and wreak havoc. The best covers were the ones that were partially true – 002 loved bombs and wreaking havoc almost as much as Bond, and he was all too happy to rain his brand of chaos down upon a poor group of unsuspecting terrorists. Once 002 reported in from the safe house for the night, the few remaining Q-Branchers in the room said their farewells to Q and went home. While Q had made many of their former number redundant by taking over a lot of the work that humans used to perform, he freed up the ones who remained for more independent projects and important intelligence gathering work, and because Q worked around the clock, the other Q-Branchers were working more regular hours than they ever had in the past. The ones that had stayed on with Q seemed genuinely happy to be there. Such a positive environment was rare in a place as dour as MI6 could be, and Q had done a considerable amount, Bond realised, to create that environment. 

After Q had seen his last staffer out the door, he turned to acknowledge Bond for the first time since Bond had taken up his sentinel’s position near Q’s workstation. “May I speak to you in my office for a moment, 007?” Q asked, all calm, professional amiability.  

Curious, Bond followed Q into his corner office, a spacious, modern thing with tinted glass walls and a very complicated-looking digital lock on the door that opened for Q without him seeming to do anything to it. Bond didn't see much of the inside of the office, because as soon as Q closed the door behind him, he pulled Bond against him, his back against the wall, and said, “I believe I have a promise to keep.” 

He searched Bond’s eyes for a brief moment, and the thought was almost painful that Q could still have a shred of doubt that this was what Bond wanted, but whatever he saw must have put his mind at ease, because he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Bond’s. The kiss did not stay chaste for long, as Bond pressed Q against the glass wall, which had been translucent as they had approached the office, but had tinted opaque when they’d stepped inside. He might have been more interested in the nifty bit of tech if we wasn't suddenly so interested in the inside of Q’s mouth, the sinewy strength of Q’s narrow wrists as he allowed Bond to pin them against the glass, the sound of Q’s contented sighs that trailed off with just a hint of static, as if he wasn't really supposed to be making sounds like that. Bond still struggled to reconcile the fact that he could touch something so ethereal as Q.

“Misuse of MI6 property,” Bond muttered against Q’s lips. 

Q looked at Bond as though he’d lost his mind, which was still a real possibility. “I don’t follow…”  

“Just adding to the list of reasons why this is a bad idea,” Bond hummed. Not that he could bring himself to give a damn about any of them at the moment. “Psych will have me committed. M will break me out just to use me for target practice. And if you were so inclined, you could slap sanctions on my corpse for misuse of MI6 property.” 

Q smiled, the bastard. “I think you may be overreacting slightly. For instance, I happen to know that you’ve done all sorts of terribly unprofessional things with MI6 property, and you’ve never been properly punished for it.” Q punctuated his words with a nip to Bond’s bottom lip. For the briefest of moments, Bond actually considered begging for punishment for all of the terrible things he’d done to Q Branch’s tech throughout his tenure at MI6. Q was insidious. 

“I may be exaggerating a little,” Bond admitted. “But in all seriousness, Q, how can this possibly work?” 

Q’s next sigh was considerably less pleased-sounding. “Is it so strange, the idea that I might actually be able to have an amorous relationship?” He sounded genuinely unsure of the answer. “The old Quartermaster was insistent that I be able to feel the full range of human emotions. He believed it was vital to my job. I needed to fear for my agents’ safety in the field, not so much that it would paralyse me, but enough that I would do my damnedest to bring them home safely. Should I fail, I needed to be able to _feel_ their loss, acutely enough that I would never repeat my past mistakes. There are people here with whom I believe I am becoming friends, like Miss Moneypenny and 004, and some of my staff. There are others who I’ve found I actively dislike, like 009 and a number of my technicians. And then there’s you. It seems cruel that they should expect me to feel these things, and do nothing. Doesn’t it?” Again, Q seemed unsure of himself.

“It does,” Bond said. Now that he better understood Q’s side of things, he felt surer of himself. “They can’t ask you to be human and treat you like a machine.”

Q kissed him again then, and through it Bond felt all of that tumultuous emotion, humming just beneath the surface like the humming of the quantum computers in Q’s server room. It was a vital part of him, and the realisation made Bond breathless. “We’re both exceedingly clever, James,” Q said, some minutes later. “We’ll figure something out. I, for one, see no reason anyone need know what we choose to do with our spare time.” For that, Bond kissed Q, so it was a little while later before Q said, “Speaking of spare time, I can’t actually eat anything, but I wouldn’t mind sitting across from you at a nice restaurant of your choice and watching you enjoy some fancy food. You could tell me how it tastes.” 

“Mmm,” Bond replied intelligently, because Q had just started teething at his throat. “Perhaps they could rustle up a good vintage of antifreeze for you. Since you seem to have some trouble retaining it lately.”

“Very funny,” Q droned. “You realise if I drank more of that stuff you wouldn’t be able to kiss me for hours.”

“Now that _would_ be a shame,” Bond said, stealing another kiss just because he could. “I know a lovely Moroccan place not far from here.”  

“Lots of spices and you eating with your fingers? That does sound lovely,” Q purred.  

“Are you sure 002 won’t be needing you again this evening?” Bond asked reluctantly.  

Q rolled his eyes. “I don’t have to physically be here to run the branch. Why does everyone have trouble grasping that? I practically _am_ Q Branch. 002 will have everything he needs. It’s 007 I’m focused on now.” 

“Wonderful,” said Bond. “Fancy a bit of a walk, then? Seeing as how my car was recently destroyed in an unfortunate explosion. Unless, of course, we could borrow one of yours…?” 

“Not a chance, James. After all, if I were to suddenly start showing you special treatment, it would look suspicious,” Q said wryly. With that, he slipped out of Bond’s grasp and held open the door of his office. “Lead the way.”

###

The next morning, Q and Bond were scheduled for their mission debrief with Mallory. It wasn’t deemed an urgent matter, since all loose ends seemed to have been tied off, and Mallory’s schedule was quite busy as he and Eve worked to get him fully settled in as the next M, a process that seemed to involve endless private meetings with foreign and domestic government officials – and unofficials. When Bond arrived at Mallory’s office, Q was already there, chatting idly with the other department head about recent data he’d gathered on the efficiency of the various branches. He and Mallory seemed to have settled into a surprisingly good working relationship, despite Q having shot Mallory’s predecessor, and Mallory having rammed a taser into the back of Q’s neck. Time marched on.  

Q spared Bond a purely professional glance as Bond entered the office and took the empty chair next to Q, across the old, mahogany desk from Mallory. It was so different from the electric looks Q had been giving Bond at the restaurant the night before, as Bond had licked spicy sauce from his fingers and Q had seemed just about ready to leap across the table and do the job himself, that Bond nearly wondered if he’d dreamt the whole thing. But no, Bond wasn’t quite creative enough to have dreamt up the things he and Q had done afterward at Bond’s flat. 

“Kind of you to grace us with your presence, 007,” Mallory said drily. Bond was only five minutes late, a delay which hardly warranted sarcasm in his opinion. Besides, if he’d been a little sluggish getting out of bed that morning, it was entirely Q’s fault. 

“Sorry I’m late, sir,” Bond said. “As you’re probably aware, my car blew up. I’ve been at the mercy of the Tube.” That was also true, and Bond wanted to dig up Silva’s corpse and kill him again for it. 

“I’m aware that your _stolen_ car blew up, 007,” Mallory replied. “Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it? On a related note, were you aware that Skyfall manor was no longer yours to blow up? We’d sold it whilst you were on your little extended holiday, and we now have an angry real estate developer on our hands who’s taking quite a bit of convincing that an abandoned, medieval home in the middle of Nowhere, Scotland somehow managed to explode without provocation.”  

“Natural gas buildup from the quarry?” Bond suggested helpfully. 

“Yes, that is the story we’re going with, 007, we’re not complete idiots running this place.” Mallory pinched the bridge of his nose in a manner that suggested he’d spent a lot of time dealing with idiots in his life. “However, your personal struggles with pyromania aside, your and Q’s swift data extraction and threat elimination has got the Committee off our backs for the time being. They have more confidence in me as the head of this agency than they did in my predecessor, and I’d like to keep it that way. So I’m going to pretend that I’d been kept informed about all of this. Q has already submitted a detailed AAR. What I need to know from you, 007, is whether at any point you felt Q acted outside of appropriate mission parameters.” 

Bond carefully kept the uneasiness from his voice when he asked, “Is Q under a performance review, sir?”

“Q is very new here, 007,” Mallory answered. “Like all new operatives, myself included, he is subject to a higher degree of scrutiny than those who have already earned the trust of this agency. On top of that, there are the unique circumstances of his nature to be considered. It is possible for him to malfunction without him even knowing it. While I’ve been told that such instances were rare during his beta testing, and were cause for some hilarity, in the field, any error can have grave consequences, as you well know. Q understands all of this.” He looked to Q, who nodded calmly. “So, for Q’s sake and for your own, was there any point in the mission where you felt Q acted outside of the appropriate parameters?”

“I was…skeptical at first when he decided to join me in person in Stockholm,” Bond admitted cautiously. “But I understood his logic, and with what he was able to achieve, I believe he took the correct course of action. I can’t say there was any point when Q acted differently than I would have, were I in his position.”

Mallory considered Bond’s words carefully. “Well,” he concluded, “that’s not entirely reassuring given your own record, 007, but I’m satisfied that you displayed sound judgment throughout the mission, Q. Good work.” 

“Thank you, sir,” Q said.  

“How are you progressing with the data you recovered from Silva’s laptop?” 

“My staff and I have managed to dismantle eighty-nine percent of Silva’s illegal operations using the information on his hard drive. The remaining eleven percent will require sending operatives into the field.” Mallory nodded, obviously pleased with Q’s report. “There is one thing that has been puzzling me, however,” Q continued. “In Silva's Omega site, there are scattered references to what I believe is some sort of organisation. But I can’t find any mention of it elsewhere.” 

That got Mallory’s full attention. He knew just how much information Q had access to. “What is this ghost organisation called?”

“It’s funny you should describe it that way, sir,” Q said. “Its name is SPECTRE.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm going to write a "Spectre" sequel! I'll be sticking about as loosely to the plot of "Spectre" as I did to "Skyfall," but it will have all my favorite (and hopefully your favorite) "Spectre" moments, as well as some stuff that's completely different. I personally love "Spectre," but it's a bit of a hot mess (like a certain 00 we all know and love), so I hope my plot will make it more coherent and continuous with "Skyfall." Here's a teaser: C's going to be another A.I. like Q! 
> 
> I can't say exactly when I'll be able to get around to starting it. But I'll get there. Like Q, I don't make promises I don't intend to keep ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you've enjoyed my writing, you can commission a story from me here: http://urban-sorcerer.tumblr.com/commissions


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